


kamen

by AzulticSerpens



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Marvel Avengers Fusion, Crack, Frostiron Bang 2014, M/M, Masks, Post-Iron Man 1, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:50:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzulticSerpens/pseuds/AzulticSerpens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony probably shouldn't have started a fling with an internet stranger named Loki. </p><p>And it should be funny that the same man he slept with---in no less than thirty different hotel rooms--- should turn out to be the very same alien demi-god that he now had to save the world from. But nobody’s laughing when the fake beard hits the floor, or the tabloids begin to speculate.</p><p>Now all he had to do was convince his teammates that he wasn't insane, hide his unmasked identity from Loki, and stop thinking in terms of movies.</p><p>Post-IM1, Pre-IM2. Avengers crackfic.<br/>Written for FrostIron Big Bang 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kamen

It’s probably not the worst thing that can happen. Sure, he’s kinda stuck at home for a while to wait out the news of his--er--new identity.

Tony was somewhat forced to lay low after a while due to the uproar that followed his announcement revealing that he was Iron Man. The board was still flipping out and the media didn’t look like they would run out of steam anytime soon, so Pepper (with the help of Rhodey, and Happy—who was still disgruntled with Tony) took it upon themselves to ‘protect’ Tony. Who doesn’t need protection, _thankyouverymuch_.

Happy was almost insultingly eager to post an extra security detail at the mansion. Something told Tony that his buddy-employee wasn't too pleased to hear that his job was being made redundant from what was basically a hunk of alloy metal.

Personally, Tony didn't see why he was complaining. The Mark II just made his job easier, right? Something about not having to actually protect the guy who wore a full bodysuit of metal.

 

And anyway, Tony was sure Happy had other things he could do for him. Things like—

Hmm.

Okay, so even if Tony couldn't remember (e.g. couldn't be bothered to do so) what were the exact terms of Happy's employment, Pepper probably knew that stuff. Because she was his PA, right?

Who was currently hunkered down in his living room on the first floor, fielding questions from the media, the government, the military, and probably the board of directors. Basically, Pepper was doing everything that Tony didn't want to do, like being handed stuff.

Tony had taken a quick peek at the makeshift work area and the place had been very close to looking like FEMA parked hastily in some town after a natural disaster. He hadn't needed to stick around after grabbing a look, in case Pepper—god forbid— tried to hand him something.

 

So Tony was stuck at his mansion in Malibu, in this isolation imposed on him by his so-called friends. He’d tried to convince them to let him take the jet to Tahiti or the Bahamas, but Rhodey’d shot him down immediately, stating that the paparazzi would be all over him and his fancy car in three seconds flat if he left the security of the gates.

Tony was rather stubborn but his friends were even more insistent, especially now. So for now, he was going to play along with whatever plan Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and assorted accomplices had plotted for his forced incarceration—but only for a while.

Tony sometimes took trips down memory lane in the suddenly long periods of solitude forced on him. He remembered one blurry and foggy party he’d thrown in ...’97 was it? He distinctly remembered the large group of people attending (around a small number, probably a hundred) and everyone steadily drinking larger and larger quantities of liquor. Eventually, the total number of drunks left in the mansion were around thirty. The mass of extremely trashed adults settled around the huge TV screen to watch Sailor Moon re-runs with a kind of morbid fascination. By the end of the second episode, the crowd of drunks had been singing along with the opening theme. And adding in stupid drunk philosophy and commentary to the show marketed to children. But most of all, he remembered everyone just attacking the girl with weird hair and the incomprehensible way that the girl couldn’t ever figure out that the guy with the cape and mask was the same asshole who insulted her all the time.

Somehow, while remembering the completely pointless memory, Tony distinctly got the feeling that the mask detail would be somehow important to him. Tony shrugged off the feeling carelessly.

But the other portion of his time was dedicated to catching up on his much needed goddamn sleep because most magazines and health sites, or even the most crackpot doctor in West Virginia, wouldn’t advise a little three month vacation in Afghanistan with terrorists as fucking babysitters.

If Tony was feeling particularly ironic, he sat down to rewatch The Count of Monte Cristo, which was eerily similar to his own situation.  

Some days he felt like counting all the tiles in his house, actually. He thought he might start naming floor tiles to freak out Pepper or Rhodey. He could see it now: Rhodey walking through the doorway, inevitably stepping on some tile and then Tony screeching ‘NOT BETSY’ or ‘COME ON MAN, HAVE YOU NO SOUL? YOU JUST STEPPED ON TYLER’. And Rhodey being nonplussed as usual.

But for the first couple of days, Tony settled for just having a movie marathon. Party of one: Tony Stark.

With no one there to curb his tendencies toward the excessive, it was about two days after he started his marathon that Rhodey walked into the workshop, only to find Tony half-asleep in one of his classic convertibles, feet dangling over the side of the passenger door.

“Leave you alone for two days and this is what happens.” Rhodey shook his head.

Tony woke up groggily at the sound of his best friend’s voice. “Wha’ up Rhodey?”

“What’s up is your ridiculous Garfield slippers.” Rhodey replied. “How long has it been since you slept?”

At the sight of Tony attempting to raise a finger, he corrected himself. “How long has it been since you slept in a bed?”

“...maybe before I did a rewatch of the Star Trek movies.”

Rhodey seemed to have to do a quick count of all the movies, and he face-palmed when he ran out of fingers. “Goddammit, Tony.”

Tony peered at him. “When did you turn into Bones, Rhodey?”

Rhodey just groaned some more and dragged Tony (who wasn't in much of a place to protest, given the godawful back ache he got from watching Star Trek in his car for countless hours) to an actual place to sleep.

"Get some sleep, man. I don't want to walk in and see you scribbling formulas on the wall in your own blood or something." Rhodey said as he leaned against the doorframe of the master bedroom.

"Too late, Rhodey." Tony said suddenly. "I'm too awake to do anything else now." He stared at the wall like it was the answer to all the world's problems.

"Think you're too good for sleep like the rest of us mortals?" His best friend joked.

"I can't turn my brain off, Rhodey. "

"Well, that's too bad. You're still going to have to rest sometime. We're not in college anymore, haven't been for years. And you can't do so many all nighters without it taking its toll." Rhodey lectured. Then he grinned. "You wanna look like an old man soon, Tony?"

"Shut up, Rhodey." Tony said in response. Then he actually got into his bed.

"Want me to tuck you in?" Rhodey asked, clearly holding back laughter.

"Get out, honeybear. I'm getting my beauty sleep." Tony declared, flopping to lie down on his side.

He heard Rhodey chuckle as he closed the door and left.

———

It was after a good ten or twelve hours of sleep that Tony set his next plan into motion. It was mostly inspired by the movie Rocket Man, which Tony had also watched within the past three days.

Once he got confirmation from JARVIS that Rhodey had arrived and was heading toward the workroom, Tony removed his socks and began conducting sock puppet theater.

Rhodey walked in and went, “After all this time, Tony, and it only took three days of house arrest to do it.”

“Do what?” Tony asked in a high voice, sock puppet turning to yap at Rhodey. Who stared at the sock incredulously.

“Drive yourself completely insane.”

“Don’t worry. He’s been there for years.” a different puppet piped up, in a high pitched voice.

Tony smacked his own hand. Well, the puppet. “Shut up. I’m not insane.”

The other sock added its two cents. “Me thinks he doth protest too much.”

Rhodey just stared some more. Then offered neutrally. “Look. Whatever problems you got, you know we’re here for you.” Then he grinned. “And whatever you do won’t make us change our minds. You can’t fool us, Tony.”

Tony threw the sock puppets down. Dammit. Maybe he should've gone with tying some old sweatpants around his head, in a weird ode to the movie. “Aw, come on, Rhodey. I’m going crazy here. “

“Well, it’s clear you are, since you’re resorting to watching old 90s Disney movies—”

“It’s a classic.”

 

"Maybe a classic children's movie." Rhodey replied doubtfully.

 

"With hits like 'I've Got The Whole World In My Hands'." Tony supplied, ripping the socks from his hands. 

 

His best friend stared at him. "You're just a megalomaniac villain origin story just waiting to happen."

 

"Now how can I do that if I'm the hero?" Tony asked.

 

"You'd be the first to make it happen." Rhodey answered, grinning. 

\----

Tony occasionally took the time to do something productive. Just tweaking some things with the suit, tinkering on some projects. He even came up with a completely useless utility to trash old files or things he was deleting. But it was cool because he made it a game to trash files. Took a while to get the animation right, but at last he could slam dunk the files he was deleting. 

Tony then wasted time on the internet, biding his time until Pepper or Rhodey weren’t watching him so closely so that he could take out the suit for a spin.

It was Halloween night. In his opinion, one of the best nights of the year: booze, sexy costumes, and goddamn candy. It was also when he was on his sixth day of incarceration. And on that day, he found someone interesting to talk to on a random chat site that he couldn’t even begin to remember how he had gotten there.

Talk about a trip down the rabbit hole.

He picked ‘DontStopMeNow’ as his username for lack of better ideas, and because he was listening to the song, anyway. It seemed like the night was just going to end up like the rest of the others, just sifting through the random crazies, twelve-year-olds that had just figured out how to curse, trolls taking the opportunities that Halloween night offered, and then those just cruising to show pics of their dick.

Tony was way tired of the whole ‘a/s/l’ routine that should have died out with cassettes and VHS. So he just asked random questions at the strangers that didn’t try the former actions.

> **DontStopMeNow** : give me your awkward travel stories. go!
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Once when I was passing through a French town near Paris. I was stopped on the street and asked by a small child if I was a disney prince.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : haha that is fucking funny
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : What, are you in a boy band?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : No
> 
> **The_Trickster** : What does that have to do with anything?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : nothinggggg

Tony had a tendency to imitate the way he spoke in typed conversations. Hence the unnecessary letters added to the end of the word. They continued their conversion amicably, and Tony learned, just before he logged off for the night, that the guy’s name was Loki. A strange name, but probably an alias that was used for the internet. _Or the guy had sadistic parents_ , Tony shrugged.

The next day, Tony logged back on and found Loki. They chatted for hours on end, only pausing for short breaks. Interestingly enough, the guy was a recent transplant to LA and had family back in the UK. Tony mentioned that he was also in Los Angeles.

Honestly, out of all the people he could have talked to on the internet, and it was a guy in the same city? Tony just wondered vaguely at the lucky coincidence.

\---

Several days passed, and Tony began to wonder if the chat site was really all that secure. He didn’t want SHIELD to randomly spy on his innocuous chats with Loki.

He mentioned to Loki about wanting to move their conversations to IRC, a method of chatting that had gained a rather dubious reputation.

 

> **The_Trickster** : IRC? Really. Are you planning on hacking something?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : no
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : shut up. Just because strip clubs have reputations for having perverts doesn’t mean everyone who goes there is one. Bachelor parties go there too.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : ...
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : that was probably a bad example
> 
> **The_Trickster** : you think? Moving on from your terrible but amusing analogy…
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Any specific reason why you feel it necessary to go on IRC?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : is privacy a good one?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : certainly. but there’s no need to act like MI-6 is after you
> 
> **The_Trickster** : apologies. the FBI, for you yanks.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** :...
> 
> **The_Trickster** : unless they are?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : It's not like that. I'm not pulling a jason bourne. I kinda...have high profile friends.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : …
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : I can feel your disbelief through my screen, Loki. Look, I just want to make sure that no one can find out who you or I were talking to
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I suppose it would not hurt.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : what channel?
> 
>  

Tony grinned and quickly typed the details of the channel he already had set up in another section of the screen. Almost as soon as Tony told him the details about their private chat channel, Loki’s username popped up. Tony had a _surprise_ waiting for him.

 

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : [[link.1]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdG_fey4_ow) enjoy ;)
> 
> **The_Trickster** : …
> 
> **The_Trickster** : What in the nine realms is that?!
> 
> **The_Trickster** : You move our conversations to IRC, and THIS is the first thing you send me?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Chill, man.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Haven’t you heard of a little something called payback?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : >:{D
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I am better acquainted with revenge, not with trifles like childish payback, you little mortal.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : By the way, how is your recovery from the [last one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) I sent you?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Damn you, man. I still have that fucking song in my head. As if there weren't enough of trolls like you on the internet.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : And who are you calling little mortal?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Apologies, I have a strange autocorrect application.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Shall I take this as your defeat?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : NEVER. It’s ON. Hold on to your tighty-whities, because you are going down.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : [[link.2]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFqw8_T_mpE)
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Highly disturbing and vulgar.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I would prefer mind bleach at this moment. What horrors does this fucking competition even inspire?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : That’s just eurovision for you.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : How do you even know about Eurovision? I was under the impression that most Americans were unaware of its existence.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : INTERNET~ It’s a wonderful thing. Lets me and you talk.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Don’t get cheeky. And the correct grammar would be “you and I”.
> 
> **The_Trickster:** A common saying in some culture is “the unwise donkey puts itself first”.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Are you calling me a donkey? What is with you and namecalling?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I didn’t specifically call you that. You simply assumed.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : right, and i’ve heard the next one, “don’t assume, it only makes an ass out of you and me.”
> 
> **The_Trickster** : [link.3]
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : GODDAMMIT.

At the video that opened up in a new window, Tony felt his eyes nearly melting out of his eye sockets. It was a video of the most terrible, terrible thing. Only that competition could ever inspire such madness. Eurovision. Who in their sane mind would nominate these Star Trek parody rejects for an international singing competition?

 

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : MY EYES.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : You asked for it. Or rather, you inspired this torture with your previous video.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : that was tame, compared to this fucking monstrosity.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Couldn't handle it?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Oh, I’ll give you something to handle.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : ...

Tony cursed in front of his screen. Damn his uncontrollable urge to always push things past their limits. He just barreled through the line of platonic buds, ran through the field of light-hearted flirting, and danced upon the grave of flaming, blatant come-ons. Where the hell had that come from? They'd been messing with each other, in the most casual of ways.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Ignore that.

He tried to backpedal quickly, knowing full well that he couldn’t take back what he’d typed. But, deep down, the real question was whether he truly wanted to take it back.

 

> **The_Trickster** : I don’t think I will. I find this new development _very_ interesting.

Tony scoffed. Loki was probably one of the worst people on the internet he could have slipped up in front of. He was exactly the type of person who analyzed everything very closely. If Tony were a lesser man, and one who hadn’t scored a 3 on the Kinsey scale, maybe he could pass it off as a joke, and call ‘no homo’. So now he had nothing else to do but call it a mistake, a little slip up.

 

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Look, man, it was a mistake.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Was it really?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Perhaps it was something latent...simply waiting for a moment of inattention.

Was...it his imagination or did Loki verge into the territory of being way too interested to be simply curious? Tony couldn’t blame his dirty mind on this. Loki’s words sounded just like he would dearly wish it to be true. And Tony couldn’t help egging him on.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Is that what you want?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : There are many things I want.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : But I think this may be one of them.

The air drifted out of Tony in surprise at the blunt statement. He’d thought it’d be a rather slim possibility. But the implication that Loki actually had been waiting for it...just boggled his mind. He tried to reply as casually as he could.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : I showed my hand there, didn’t I?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : What exactly do you want?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I think it is safe to say that we are both bored. Highly intelligent with too much time on our hands.

Tony grinned at the offhand compliment that Loki paid to himself and Tony.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : That’s really true, you know. Especially for me.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Your egotism, amusingly enough, knows no bounds.

Tony could count on one hand the number of people who had met him personally and didn’t find his occasionally overbearing ego irritating after a while. And very few still who did while not naked.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Most people usually don’t say that.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I am not like most people.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : I’ve noticed that.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : How...observant of you.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : What were you thinking of? I think I know where this is going.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Do you?
> 
>  

Things led to one thing or another, and suddenly Tony found himself typing the filthy things he wanted to do to Loki. It was satisfying in a way, because it was yet another way to let off steam. And boy, did he ever.

It took a little getting used to-- this new thing they had. And because Tony had taken up the habit of snacking on tortilla chips while they chatted, he ended up having a lot of crumbs on his desk because he kept snapping chips in half when he read a particularly salacious message from Loki.

They got to about two or three conversations before Loki brought up the elephant in the room.

 

> **The_Trickster** : Not that this hasn’t been...fulfilling, i suppose, but all I have are promises of how you look like but no actual proof.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : are you actually asking for dick pics
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Don’t be vulgar.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : you ARE spending your nights cybering on the internet
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Irrelevant, but true in a sense. I was simply asking for a picture of you.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : really?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Yes. And please spare me the any charade you might be thinking of doing. I know all the tricks. All the google searches for pictures.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : You could say that I invented those tricks.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Got it. So how about I send you a pic of me with ‘hey sexy’ on my abs so you know its me?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : ...

Loki’s silence was just unbelievably funny to Tony, because knowing his chat buddy, it could be anything from amused silence to stupefied disbelief to even judging silence. Tony got his answer some minutes later, while he was rooting through a box in search of a washable marker. Because there was no way that he was going to be going around with that sort of phrase on his stomach. What if he was invited to a spontaneous pool party at random celebrity #246’s house? Not that Pepper would actually approve the outing.

> **The_Trickster** : Well? I thought you were going to send me a little present.

Tony choked. He hadn’t expected Loki to actually approve of his craziness. Hmm, maybe he really was eager to see him.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : I wasn’t being serious. But if you insist...
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Oh, but I do insist. In fact, I might even say that I dare you to do it.
> 
> **  
> **

Tony scowled at his screen. Who did Loki think he was, sending that sort of challenge to him? Now, Tony felt that familiar curl of heat in his abdomen begin to come alive. That sort of thing just sounded so suggestive when Loki said it. Or typed it, technically. But whatever.

 **** _Oh, two could play at that game_ , Tony thought deviously.

Though he thought it was a bit unfair on his part to be the first to somewhat reveal himself. After that, it would be up to Loki to continue their current arrangement. And Tony didn’t exactly like having all his chips with another player, as they say. But he would give as good as he got in this moment.

> **DontStopMeNow** : How about something better?

And then he pulled up his black tank top to where it just covered the beginning of the scars from the arc reactor, scrawling ‘hey sexy’ with a marker as he’d said he would do...but considerably lower than his abs. Like his hip. The picture wasn’t going to leave anything to the imagination as to how well he was endowed.

No regrets here, Tony thought as he uploaded the picture and had it as a reply to Loki. And Loki’s response was quick, very quick.

 

 

> **The_Trickster** : My, perhaps you do have something worth bragging about.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : It's no secret that I'm the best
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : And it looks like it's your turn.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Could I not just sit here and imagine the taste of you?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Fuck.
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Do both. I want to see you come.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : And you will.
> 
> **  
> **

\----

Eventually, things got to a point where the screen and everything else is way too much between them. Tony brought up the possibility of meeting up.

> **DontStopMeNow** : Why don't we meet up?

Then he regretted typing it. Because no matter his raging boner, he just couldn't. He couldn't agree to meet his chat partner because of...his status as a goddamn tin can. Famous tin can, but some guy in a suit nonetheless. 

He trusted the guy to a certain extent...but still. He was a complete stranger to him. If agreeing to meet up didn’t end up badly once Loki realized who he was, then maybe if the guy was a crazy axe murder on intent on stalking him and killing him. Every single little, bad thing he’d ever heard about the internet and the mysterious strangers you might interact with, resonated soundly through his head.

But it was like every other fucking time that Tony wanted to do something...incredibly stupid. Like those nights he’d decided to get so fucking smashed that he wasn’t quite right until the next weekend. Where he did it again. Or those times he’d taken home random people just to feel something.  And just like the first time he put on the suit without any clear idea of what he was doing.

He had ignored those warnings and did what he’d wanted those times, and he wasn’t about to stop now. He’d taken many chances in his life, and here he was, about to take another one. Tony stared at Loki’s response to meeting up [ “Where?”] and typed a response. 

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Ritz Carlton Hotel LA. Room 1415. I'll be waiting.

Loki’s response is lightning fast, Tony wondered if he’d been waiting for this as much as Tony had.

 

> **The_Trickster:** when shall i have the pleasure of seeing you?

Pleasure. Just seeing that word on the screen gave him an anticipatory boner, like his imagination was already going to work triple time.

> **DontStopMeNow:** Tomorrow. At 6pm.

So they arranged to meet up at the hotel with masks, a suggestion that was more enthusiastically approved by Tony because of his notoriety.

It was about two hours before he was going to leave for the hotel, that he put on the mask in the mirror and froze. And cursed up a storm.

Fuck. He thought, as he examined his reflection in the mirror. His fingers brushed the carefully groomed beard. The damn beard was so fucking famous that if he showed up right now, Loki , if he had a lick of intelligence and was relatively up to date on current issues from the past decade or so, would immediately identify him as the famous billionaire. Or he might think that Tony was one of those batshit insane wackos that did all kinds of crazy shit to look like their favorite celebrity.

He didn’t know what was worse: his cover being blown (Tony had to stifle a laugh at the possible double meaning) or being mistaken for someone slightly crazier than himself.

But of course those situations all had the dubious advantage of getting to know if Loki might have some secret fantasies about him. _You know_ , as Tony Stark, brilliant industrialist, billionaire, playboy.

He already had enough proof that Loki thought of him in a decidedly more non-PG manner. There was no need to even pull up the, ahem, screenshots he’d automated to be taken of the many conversations they’d had over the past week.

He stared at his beard some more, scratching at it too, in thought. What could he do?

Tony thought back to all the books he’d read as a kid—a time when Tony had been very interested in spies and their methods of going undercover. Their kits for changing from one apparent persona to another. They’d often put on fake beards to hide the most identifying features of their face.

He turned his face from one side to the other in the mirror, trying to imagine how he might look with a longer beard.

JARVIS helpfully projected a visualization of how he might look with a long fake beard. “Perhaps this might assist you in your decision, sir?”

Tony’s eyes widened. Oh fuck no.

“You think I want to look like Gimli? No fucking way.” 

**  
**

Then Tony sighed. There were limited options for him to disguise himself using things he had right now, and even less methods that he could have done in the next hour or so. Dyeing his beard was also an option, but he immediately nixed that idea but it would look dumb as hell, compared to the natural color of his other hair.

There was no choice. He was going to have to do it. He was going to have to shave his beard.

“JARVIS,” he said, speaking to the bottom of the sink in a sightless way. “Why do I get the feeling that this is probably a bad idea?”

JARVIS replied smoothly. “Because most of them are, sir.”

Tony grumbled wordlessly as he reached for the razor and shaving cream. He stared into the mirror, at his beard that had quickly become his pride and joy as soon as he could even grow it right. Without looking like he had filthy pubes on his face.

It wasn’t just a beard. It was almost part of his face. Tony felt like he was faced with the terrible, horrifying decision of amputating a limb.

It was part of him, not just physically, but in the public image sense. The fresh faced days of when he first had to take over Stark Industries were behind him, and people associated the beard with his meteoric rise of making his own name in the industry, without leaning on his dad’s legacy. He took in the facial hair regretfully.

“Take a good long look, JARVIS.” he told his AI mournfully. “Actually, you should take a picture. Because this will be the last time you see my beautiful beard.”

“I am sure it will grow back, sir.”

“You don’t understand, JARVIS. Once I shave it, my beard will cease to exist!” Tony said dramatically. “It might grow back, but it won’t ever be the same.”

“Then perhaps you want your conversational partner to immediately know who you are?”

“No, dammit,” Tony answered, leaning on the sink and groaning. “Argh, I don’t need any more backstabbing friends in my life.”

“Then you must remove your beard, sir. I see no other option at this point, as there are few hours until your meeting.”

“You’re right.” Tony said, biting it out like it hurt him physically. “I’ll do it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to remove a part of myself.”

JARVIS commented “Sir, I believe that may be a bit melodramatic, to be honest,” but his words were drowned out by a blood curdling scream from Tony as he began to shave parts of his beard off.

————

Two hours later, Tony was lying on the hotel room bed, stretched out on the comforter as he waited for his chat partner to arrive. He'd mostly recovered from the removal of his his most prominent feature. The billionaire still touched his bare chin, still not believing that it was gone. His legs hung off the edge of the bed, but only because he was lying perpendicular to it. Otherwise, he wouldn't even reach the edge, no matter how much he stretched.  Tony swung his feet back and forth impatiently, shoes knocking back against the bed and making it squeak.

He smirked. If things went well, that wouldn't be all the noise that the bed might make that night.

The sound of the door lock whirring had Tony scrambling up. When Tony finally saw, long at last, his chat partner, his first reaction was to be surprised that he had been able to open the door. Maybe he forgot to close the door to the hotel room correctly?

But all of those thoughts flew away when the door was opened completely. Loki stood in the doorway, just barely finished with putting on his mask. He was probably six foot one or two, and would definitely tower over Tony easily. The mask was a dark green that complemented the man's pale features. He wore his ink-black hair slightly longer than his sharp jaw line. Loki walked into the hotel room, a grin quirking his lips.   
  
Tony's eyes were drawn to his mouth, and he unconsciously licked his lips. He was almost startled at how attractive Loki seemed to be in real life.

"Did you get started without me?" Loki said, with mock disappointment. His green eyes glittered behind his darker green mask. Tony looked back at the bed and noticed that the bedspread looked wrinkled like some creature had been rolling in it.

Which technically had been him. Tony wasn't quite sure that his earlier thoughts had been all that flattering, so he quickly revised his observation. _Correction_ —the bed looked like a very handsome billionaire had been leisurely reposing there earlier.

"Nope. Just saving up my energy for later," Tony answered with a wink he just knew that the man would see behind his deep red mask. He'd tried to leave the mansion with a hot-rod red and gold mask not unlike his suit.

Not the suit he was wearing now, of course. His Iron Man suit.

JARVIS had refused to unlock the entrance to let him leave, citing the possible security risk. Tony sulked until DUM-E brought him a burgundy sort of mask. Not really as eye catching as he would have liked.

"Sir, the point is to not break your cover" JARVIS had protested.

Tony didn't really give a shit—he wasn't a spy—but he went through it anyway.

Dark gold accents framed the decidedly more muted red-burgundy mask that covered below his brow to just above his mouth. "You find your way up here easily enough? I know the bellboy's a bit of a dick but you've just got to throw around some money to shut him up."

"Oddly enough, he was more than accommodating for me. The only complication was the room key."

"What? I thought this seemed fine. You know, me lying in wait."

"Perhaps our current cloak and dagger techniques are not the best—"

Tony stiffened. He couldn't let this get out, he'd be painted even stranger of a playboy in the tabloids. And right now, they had a running story claiming that he went off with three Vegas showgirls, wearing nothing but his helmet. Total bullshit. He knew for a fact that he took no less than a dozen girls once in the nineties. And he could have done it again. If he wanted to. But he didn’t.  "Look, I don't know about you but I'd like this to stay the same. Maybe figure out a different way to pass on the keys."

"I see," The man said, green eyes looking at him appraisingly through his mask. Tony motioned at the small seating area off to the other end of the hotel suite, so that they could ease into conversation. They took theirs seats in the regrettably _separate_ fancy looking, high-backed armchairs.

“How’d you get up here so quickly?” Tony looked at the clock on the bedside table. “You’re a couple of minutes earlier than I expected.”

"I simply told the front desk that I had a package to deliver." answered Loki simply.

"What package," Tony asked, laughing " _Your_ package?"

He could see a hint of a smile under the mask as Loki replied. "As amusing that would be, no. I'm not of the habit of jesting in that manner."

"Ah," Tony said understandingly, even though he was privately bemoaning the lost opportunity for a package joke. "So what's in the box?"

Loki opened his mouth to answer, but Tony and his quick to the gutter mind had already beaten him there. "Don't tell me it's your dick in the box—" he blurted, secretly envying him if he had, because he hadn't thought of it himself.

He was surprised when the tall suited man seated in front of him released a surprised laugh, eyes crinkling in mirth behind his mask. "How amusing you are in person! I hadn't expected you to be quite exactly as you are over chat."

"I'm just full of surprises." Tony winked. "And let's just say you're not the only person who's surprised here. You're pretty...verbose in person." He leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees.

“There are other situations in which  I can get...quite vocal.” Loki said huskily, eyes glittering behind the mask.

Just when Tony was about to literally jump him, Loki changed the subject to one they had been previously discussing. “And likewise.” Loki replied. “I know quite well how some people are different in person as compared to when they’re typing responses, hunched over a computer.” Loki leaned in closer as if he were revealing some sort of secret. Tony unconsciously moved forward. “But if you really must know what I had in the box...there was nothing in it, really.”

Tony laughed. “Nothing? You walked past those security hounds and they didn’t notice you were carrying an empty box?”

“It was nothing.” Loki demurred, looking around the hotel suite with interest. “Only a little something many people would call social engineering.” he explained “Once you familiarize yourself in the situations in which it might be used, the world, as they say, is your oyster.”

“That, that right there takes some balls, my friend.” Tony blurted. “You seem to be pretty comfortable with doing that.”

“I am.” Loki agreed, with a little grin that spoke volumes.

“Sounds like you’re a social hacker to me.” Tony remarked. Then he grinned. “And you were flipping out about moving our chats to IRC!”

“I was not flipping out.” Loki replied primly. “I was simply concerned as to what kind of conclusions others might draw from our use of that method of communication.”

Tony snorted. “They can speculate all they want on what kind of illegal activities we might be getting up to in there. But that’ll never be enough to accuse us conclusively of anything. Sure, they might try, but they won’t get anywhere. Unless they happen to find our conversation exactly as its happening.”

“I suppose the security measures are good enough.” Loki narrowed his eyes.  “But that does remind me. I never did get an exact answer to your insistence on IRC.”

Tony stiffened. Dammit.

“You just never know who might be watching.” he replied edgily. “Don’t take me for a paranoid psycho with delusions of persecution. I just have my reasons.”

Loki looked away, brow pinching together above the mask.

“You want some wine?” Tony asked as a way to divert Loki’s attention away from the awkwardly tense moment. He got up to grab the bottle of wine he’d placed by the minibar.

The paler man turned to him, smiling. “That would be wonderful.”

Tony poured a healthy amount into two glasses with a flourish, and handed one to Loki. “Some spirits to lift the spirits?” he joked.

Loki chuckled and Tony thought that he might just be out of the red. Surely he didn’t have more personal questions?

Unfortunately for him, Loki did have more questions---and none that of the harmless “What’s your favorite color?” or “So your favorite kink is?” variety. It was after Tony had been lured into a false sense of security and had the pleasant buzz of wine in his head that Loki made his move.

“So what is it that you do?”

Tony froze like he’d been caught sneaking into top secret government facilities to peek at their tech. Which he’d never, ever done in his life…

...Okay. Maybe it was once or twice, but he’d been _curious._

Tony got up and stepped closer to Loki sitting in the armchair, holding his wine glass carelessly, a mischievous grin growing larger on his face.

“I don’t know,” he answered, “But I think in the next couple of hours, I’ll be doing you.”

Loki laughed and put down his own glass, taking Tony’s away as well, giving him a heated glance.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Loki queried seductively, undoing the top buttons of his shirt.

Tony leaned down, crashed into him, immediately going at his mouth with an intensity that only came from hours, days, weeks, who knew, it was long enough, of frustration. They’d gotten off several times before with each other, but that had only been using the computer; the internet had connected them but it was never physically a connection. That sort of release was a kind of shallow, hollow one. Because there was no one else there with you, breathing heavily or panting, moaning or groaning, gasping or shuddering with you in completion.

Loki gasped into his mouth, hands pulling at his suit jacket. Tony reacted by bringing a hand to the back of Loki’s neck, gradually pushing him closer to him. He groaned as Loki sucked at his tongue, thinking exactly how perfect that mouth might feel on other parts of him.

Tony broke their heated kiss, only withdrawing enough so that they weren’t attached anymore. “Let’s take this party somewhere more comfortable.” he said, out of breath.

“A wise suggestion,” Loki replied, and Tony was drawn to how his mouth looked distractingly swollen from their rough kissing. Loki took the chance to get up from the chair and push Tony in the direction of the bed. Tony stumbled into the bed backwards, and Loki followed not far behind him. He straddled Tony, at first kissing him, and nibbling at his lips.

"Let's get these masks off—" Loki said, lithe fingers dancing ever closer to the tie of Tony's mask.

“No!” Tony blurted before he could stop himself. Loki gave him an odd look.

Right. Good going there, Stark. Now do something else to make yourself look even more of a complete weirdo in front of the guy. Tony thought derisively.

“Uh—I meant, no, we can just keep them on?” Tony revised hurriedly.

Loki smirked at him. “If that’s your kink then…”

He went on lavishing touches and featherlight kisses, starting at his neck, and drifting down to his collarbone and the skin on his chest that was exposed from the top two or three buttons undone on his dress shirt.

Tony shrugged out of his suit jacket. “Not that I don’t love foreplay... I think it might unnecessary in our case. You know, since we’ve been cybering.”

Loki grinned devilishly.“I’d rather work you up and have you begging.”

In a quick move that was only possible thanks to his fighting experience, Tony had switched their positions. Now it was Loki who was on his back, glowering at Tony.

“Who’s on top now?” Tony asked triumphantly.

 

\--------

Tony knew that he was getting sloppy. He was getting too caught up in the whole intrigue of chatting with a guy he only knew from the internet and their own heated romps at random hotels in the city.

He was kinda getting tired of all the fucking knowing looks that he got from the front desks at the hotels they booked a single night at. Felt those eyes on his back, when getting onto the elevator with a seriously ridiculous looking Panama hat (or some other kind of shitty looking hat that the tourists so loved to wear). He wore some of the most nondescript sunglasses he actually owned—a pair of black Ray-Ban Wayfarers—which weren’t all that much less flashy than his usual red tinted shades. But it worked.

Maybe he was just getting paranoid.

There was still no mistaking the look in Pepper’s eyes when he trailed off randomly one day in the middle of a rant about the new uppity supposed weapons manufacturer getting a contract with the government, to look down at the screen and type off a quick response to Loki. Or when he was talking to Rhodey and then whipped out his phone to see a response from Loki, which made him laugh.

He knew the game was up when the next time Pepper and Rhodey were hanging out at the mansion, Tony couldn’t stop himself from checking his phone like a teenager waiting to hear from his crush. Which he was none of the above.

Rhodey called him out on it. “What’s up with you, Tony?” he said. “You’re jumpier than a frog.”

“It’s nothing.” Tony tried to brush off Rhodey’s query.

Pepper watched the exchange, while helping herself to a drink from Tony’s wet bar. “It doesn’t really look like nothing, honestly.”

“And I know you’ve got this tendency to have a problem with your attention span.” Rhodey added his two-cents.

“I was checking some updates on what I’m building.” Tony covered up. Then he called on JARVIS for backup. “Right, JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir. Developments are underway.”

Tony turned to look triumphantly at the pair of his friends. “See?”

They looked at each other and shrugged. Which left them free to enjoy the rest of their night hanging out. But Tony still managed to catch a significant look between his friends when they didn’t think he was paying attention.

 _Shit_.

\------

Their meetings continued for the next two months, intermittently when they could both sneak off to another randomly chosen hotel.

It was these times that Tony wondered at his glorious, wonderful luck, because he’d had a good handful of illicit meetings with Loki at the hotels, and not once had the arc reactor been noticed. The first few times he'd gotten away with it by fucking Loki with his shirt on. Most of his shirts let some of the blue-white light from the reactor glow through, but he'd developed a couple of special dress shirts and tanks that hid the glow mostly well enough. And the other times, he'd wrapped bandages around his torso and explained it away as a boxing injury. 

Until now.

Tony supposed that the bandages he’d been wearing must have slipped slightly in his eager participation of certain activities with Loki. Because one minute he’d been drifting off to sleep, the next, Loki was asking dubiously, “Is that...your phone?”

“Uh, what?”

“You’re looking at your fucking phone.” Loki muttered in disbelief. “At a time like this?”

Tony just had to think ‘fuck it’ and go with whatever assumption Loki had made about the blue glow of the arc reactor.

“It just...turned on?” he answered, not quite deciding whether to ask or state it.

“Oh, and that’s not the only thing around here that’s turned on.” Loki purred, in a completely unexpected turn of events.

 " _Oh god"_ , Tony groaned as Loki's mouth engulfed him, not knowing exactly how right he was in his statement.

\-----

"I do not fear you knowing who I am." Loki said. "Yet you do? This city has a metro population of over twelve million. Even larger if we include the larger area. What are the chances that we could recognize each other in the street?”

He had no idea. But the chances were pretty _fucking_ _high_. Loki could be at the fucking grocery store and see him. Not him but his face plastered all over those magazines. Hell, more likely than not, even without the beard, Loki would identify him once the masks were off. 

Tony grimaced. "It's not that."

Loki lowered his head in thought. "You don't trust me?"

Now that was a pretty dilemma that Tony could not even begin to cover, not even with a thousand pages like _Gone With The Wind_.

"Look, it's not you that I don't trust. I’d like to. I really do." Tony said. "But others...I don't trust."

"Why should others have any bearing on what we do?" Loki asked, now stiff.

"Uh," Tony groaned, putting his head in his hands. This was starting to get way too messy, trying to explain how he, literal king of no-fucks-given land, suddenly cared about what people thought. "I can't expect you to understand this, really, but it's part of who I am. In real life."

"I see."  Loki said quietly. "I suppose you may be something of a public figure."

"Right on the money."

"Well," Loki said pensively. "I suppose I can understand your situation...And accept it." Then he leered at Tony. "But only because I have grown fond of the way you fuck me."

"So you want my body but not my mind?" Tony teased.

"You know very well that your wit was the first. I'd never bed anyone with the IQ of a particularly thick muppet." Loki said, sneering the last bit derisively.

“Muppet! Ha—what—the fuck—” Tony chortled, until he unbalanced and fell off the bed with a comical choked off noise. And then Loki was laughing at the sight of Tony sprawled on the hotel carpet.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Tony said peevishly, looking up at Loki still perched smugly on the bed.

“I’ll do what I want,” Loki declared. More of his witticisms were halted in their tracks as Tony sort of jumped back on the bed, and shoved him into the bed. Tony loomed over him, grinning, as Loki’s eyes seemed to have dilated from the rushed handling.

“And might that include me?”

After the rough, fast fuck that followed, Tony collapsed to lean back on the headboard, and Loki did the same, resting his head on his shoulder.

"I don't think I've ever had this with anyone else."

"This?"

"Being with you. You know, just talking." Tony answered.

Loki snorted. “How incredibly deep. You’ll be writing the next Ulysses at this pace.”

“I don’t remember much of my English lectures in college, but wasn’t his book absolute fuckery?”

“Exactly.” Loki said with a straight face.

Tony held it in until he just couldn’t stand the hilarity of the statement, and he burst out laughing. Loki joined in, chuckling at his joke.

\----

Tony was glad that he decided to have emergency (and by emergency, he actually meant a dick emergency) identities set up. Because if Tony Stark had been booking those hotels...shit would be going _down_. He knew somebody, whether it be the check-in desk or the maid, might happen to read and recognize the name. And the cat would be flying right out of the bag.

Things have been going so well that Tony realized that it wasn’t really all that _logical_ (maybe he was watching too much Star Trek, it was bleeding into his word choices) to grow his beard all spotty looking and then shave it completely off the next time he met with Loki. Well that and the fact that he was being lazy. So he looked into getting a fake beard very similar to his old one, and trimmed it up to his old style. Just in case Pepper, Rhodey, or Happy happened to drop in on him unexpectedly. It wasn’t like he could regrow his old beard back in the space of a couple of minutes.

It seemed like a perfect plan and no one’s the wiser to the furry impostor on his face. Until, one night, he was seated around the fireplace, chatting with Rhodey, all casual, when the beard flopped off his face and on the floor.

In hindsight, the adhesive probably weakened from the full day’s use and Tony sitting so close to the fireplace.

Rhodey’s face was so comical that Tony would have laughed at him, if it wasn’t his fake beard there lying on the floor. So Tony’s face was probably rivaling Rhodey’s own, but probably with more visible signs of the ‘ _shitshitshitshit_ ’ that was running through his mind. And his eyes were the size of giant fucking dinner plates from an overpriced charity dinner.

It was just as awkward as the time some stuffy Stark Industries board member overbalanced getting out of his chair at one really boring as fuck meeting that Pepper had forced him to attend, and the gasbag’s toupee slid straight off his head.

That time Tony barely managed to hold in his laughter and had only just escaped insulting the board member outright. But the old man still stomped off angrily when Tony shook his hand goodbye with an irrepressible grin.

Humor wouldn’t get him out of this, this time. But it was pretty funny how Rhodey’s eyes kept darting from his face to the fake beard on the floor, as if he’d seen a magic trick he couldn’t believe.

“Uh—I can explain?” Tony said, finally, raising his hands questioningly.

Rhodey stopped looking back and forth from Tony’s face and the fuzz on the floor. He settled on crossing his arms and pinching his brow like he felt a migraine coming on. “I’d ask but, you know what? I don’t think I want to know.”

Tony slumped in his seat in relief. Now he wouldn’t have to make up some sort of excuse for having a fake beard. Or why he’d shaved his old one off. Or the reason why he had even done so, for that matter. God, he really hoped that Rhodey didn’t think it was some sort of early mid-life crisis.

“Thanks, Rhodey.” he said, almost heartfelt in his response.

Rhodey replied sarcastically. “What are friends for?”

Tony pretended to toast him with an imaginary glass. “For looking the other way when your beard falls off.”

“Goddammit, Tony.” Rhodey just groaned.

\-------

 _Shit_. He thought one day when he spotted Pepper entering the workroom, with a terrifying look that meant business. She stared him down.

“I’m working!” Tony defended himself. But then realized he actually hadn't had anything to be defensive about in the first place.

“Right. Since when does working involve you typing really quickly, staring at the screen, and then laughing your ass off? I know you love what you do. Maybe you’re a little too obsessed with building all those things, but I don’t think they make you laugh like that. I know your concentration face, Tony, and that was definitely not your concentration face,” Pepper said. Then she added. “And don’t think I forgot that time I caught you watching some ridiculous viral video.”

“Um. Well,” Tony began, then stopped. “Someone sent that to me.”

“Who? I know James or I didn’t send it. And Happy, well, he’s still figuring out how to use his phone.”

Tony turned away to take apart the inner workings of one of the bots. He wondered if climbing the counters to get away from Pepper’s questions would be considered childish. Then he gave in and answered Pepper’s question. “A friend.” His mouth wrapped strangely around the words, like it didn’t quite agree with the term.

And how could it, when he still felt the sensation of Loki’s lips on his?

Pepper tried to stifle a laugh, but failed. “No offense, Tony, but you don’t have many friends.” Tony felt a sudden urge to snap at her like a petulant five-year-old, but thought better of it. It wouldn’t help his case anyway.

“I have a lot of friends,” he sniffed in a holier-than-thou way. “Even if most of them are only with me because of my name or money…” he trailed off pensively. Maybe if he could put Pepper off the scent completely—

Then Tony did a complete one-eighty in mood, and continued in a much more giddy air. “But my buddy here doesn’t care about that.” he finished cheerily.

“They don’t?” Pepper asked dubiously.

“Nope.”

“Who are they?” She shot at him.

“No one.” Tony evaded with the grace of an elephant on stilts. While blindfolded. Juggling a warthog and a meerkat on it’s trunk.

Wait. Wasn’t that Lion King?

Pepper levelled a glare at him that would have had most grown men running into the Pacific Ocean. Though if Tony tried to make a break for it, he’d have to beat Pepper to the stairs that went up to the first floor, and then run out the front door. ‘Course, he could run out through the underground passage that led up to the outside driveway, but Pepper might just catch him anyway. Though she might not look it, Pepper could outrun the best of them even while wearing her pointy heels. Best not to risk death by high-heels.

“Just you wait, Tony Stark.” she said, raising a hand to point at him. “I’ll find out who your little friend is and why you’re hiding them from us—your friends. And your dear AI will help me, isn’t that right, JARVIS?” she asked sweetly.

JARVIS sounded almost sheepish, if an AI could even sound like that. “I’m afraid I will remain neutral in this conflict, Miss Potts.” the AI said. “My programming does not allow me to do otherwise.”

Pepper took the news well. “That’s fine, JARVIS.” She replied kindly.

Pepper took it so well that Tony thought that she’d forgotten all about him.

Until she turned back to Tony and gave him a look more terrifying than the first one, that had Tony taking an instinctive step back. Pepper saw that, and smiled, but all that Tony could see was a riled up she-wolf filing her claws.

Aaand now his brain wasn’t helping him much now, as one of the words he’d just thought brought up a Shakira song to the front of his mind. _Definitely_ not helping.

She seemed to back down from getting her claws into him, figuratively—and maybe physically. “At least subconsciously you know,” She said before walking over to the workshop door. Pepper pulled open the door and stepped through, saying “I do hope you know that I’m doing this for your own good, Tony. It’s only my duty. And, you know, my job.”

The glass door drifted shut. Tony watched her go up the stairs before turning to his work table and bracing his arms on the edge.

He mimicked her last words in an unflattering falsetto that didn’t sound anything like Pepper (or any woman he’d ever met, for that matter), but that didn’t stop him. “It’s only my job, Tony—it’s only my duty. It’s for your own good, Tony—” He stared down petulantly at his tools and muttered. “Well, its my own damn life!”

Tony scanned the workshop without really seeing anything.

Well not really. Who could ignore that giant, vivid orange Garfield clock in the corner?

Rhodey had given it to him as a joke present. Tony still wasn’t sure if it wasn’t a knockoff clock. The paint was uneven in some sections, and the tail that swung from side to side counting the seconds, had fallen off several times already.

It scared the fuck out of him because one night—okay, okay, it’d been like early morning—he’d been working all alone in the shop, tinkering with this and that, thinking about putting on some AC/DC or Black Sabbath to cut the dead silence, when the loudest sounds that side of the Rockies were made.

The tail of the Garfield clock had fallen on the finished concrete floor. But not before hitting the side of a metal table and knocking over some random shit, too. _Jesus_. It had almost given Tony a heart attack at the time. He would’ve thrown the whole damn thing into the redundant fireplace (a useless thing, really, for sunny Malibu) up on the first floor, if JARVIS hadn’t reminded him that Rhodey gave it to him.

Who knew what secret dark magic they taught them at the Air Force? Tony didn’t want to risk Rhodey’s wrath, so he tossed the tail into the drawer and left the Garfield clock hanging. He really did like the Garfield comic strips, but he wasn’t so sure about that clock. At least the eyes of the clock didn’t look like they were following him around any more.

Speaking of which… “What kind of PA involves herself that much?” He asked to thin air.

JARVIS took it upon himself to answer him. “Only Miss Potts, sir.”

“Hm.” Tony grunted. If he squinted, then he could pretend that the Garfield clock was talking to him. And then realized he had been thinking just like the sleep-deprived did, in weird tangents that made no sense. But to be honest, after seeing the movie, he couldn’t imagine the pudgy orange cat with a British accent, much less the polished cadence of JARVIS.

He really did need to get some sleep. How long had it been since he last took some shut-eye? He couldn’t even remember. But it had probably been in those moments of sex caused exhaustion after meeting with Loki.

“Miss Potts did save your life, sir.” JARVIS said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, she did.” Tony agreed. “Even then, let’s just keep this secret between you and me.” And Garfield, the knockoff clock.

“Yes, sir.”

A notification of a new message from his chatting partner appeared on his screen. Tony glanced furtively back at the glass door of the workshop before he opened the message.

“Some things are just meant to be kept secret.” Tony said, attempting to sound wise. “And in the words of a wise feline: I hate Mondays.” Tony savored for a minute the feeling and sound of his 'wise' words, until JARVIS burst his bubble.

“Many academics would argue that Garfield the cat is not quite the definition of wise.”

“Shut up, JARVIS.”

“Yes, sir.”

\-------

Time flew quickly—and soon the Christmas season appeared out of the blue, like the abominable snowman from a giant mound of snow that you thought was, well, snow. It seemed way too soon for Tony to be expected to give gifts, again. Tony groaned at the thought, and then sent Pepper an email telling her to send out his flood of gifts to the board and other people he had to play at being nice to for appearances sake.

But he, for once, decided to withhold on sending generic gifts to exactly four people. It was the first time that he thought about picking out something personally for his important people in years. Then again, the year had been full of all kinds of revelations and developments. It’d been one helluva a roller coaster that he hadn’t even known he was boarding. The result was just realizing how truly important his friends were to him.

So he spent some time on finding gifts for Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and...Loki. At first, he hadn’t been sure about getting Loki anything...but the more he thought about it, the more he just became more convinced that it couldn’t hurt to get the guy something at least.

 _I mean, what are fuck buddies for?_ Tony thought gleefully, as he scrolled through many different pages.

After many hours, and numerous websites that he crawled the web for, Tony gave up trying to find something mass-produced for Loki. He decided that the man would need something of a more… personal touch. Tony figured that Loki was a very particular sort of person that had more refined tastes. So he got in touch with a store that made bespoke scarves right on the premises.

Tony wasn’t much of an artist so he got JARVIS to help with the design, but the general idea was his own. He envisioned something of a slightly geometric looking design, with the colors that Loki favored wearing—green. And then, because Tony was feeling a bit too full of himself that day, gold to complement the green details.

He sent off the design, and according to the store, would be ready just after Christmas, due to the sudden flood of orders that came in.

Tony shrugged at that, because it wasn’t like he could have met up with Loki and given it to him. At the moment, Loki was out of the country for the holidays, as he had told him on the chat, and wouldn’t be back until the 27th.

Now he just had to figure out gifts for his friends.

\-----

It wasn’t really all that cold in Malibu, with the temperatures hovering right around sixty-five degrees fahrenheit during the day when the sun shone brightly on the beaches. And it was one of those hot days, when Pepper, right around two days after Christmas day, casually mentioned some sort of New Years celebration benefit.

“Oh, and thank you for my present, Tony. I didn’t expect to get anything from you this year.” Pepper said, with an air of surprised gratefulness.

“That really hurts, Pepper.” Tony replied in mock-hurt. “You know I always get you, uh, something.”

“Yeah,” Pepper laughed. “Like my birthday present this year. Really thoughtful. You knew exactly what I wanted.”

She deadpanned. “Because I bought it for me.”

Tony froze, he’d nearly been patting himself on the back when Pepper refreshed his memory. “Um. About that,” he began. “You see that was before…”

Pepper seemed to remember exactly what had followed after those events. An extended vacation in the caves of the Afghanistan desert.

“Oh, Tony, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.” she apologized.

Tony waved her off, not wanting to get into more shit about those days. “It’s fine.” he said. Then he changed the subject. “So how’d you like your necklace?”

“It’s really beautiful, Tony. I can’t wait to wear it to the New Years benefit.” she gushed.

Tony’s thoughts stuttered to a stop. A benefit being held on New Years?

“What benefit?” he demanded.

Pepper replied offhandedly. “Oh you know, it’s one of those things you always say that you hate going to. Some high society people are throwing it in Los Angeles for the New Year, black-tie event and everything. I think the theme this year is masquerade.” Then she added, “And no, Tony, that is not an invitation to sing ‘Masquerade’ from the Phantom of the Opera.”

Tony, who had taken a very deep breath in preparation, promptly deflated. “Aw, come on, Pepper.” he whined. “I happen to like that movie and that song a lot.”

“Because you think they’re singing something dirty in that part.”

“You can’t argue that it doesn’t sound like that, Pepper.” Tony argued.

Pepper just sighed. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Too late. It’s permanently stuck there.” Tony replied immaturely. “The YouTube comments on that video agree with me.”

“YouTube’s comments section is the cesspool of humanity.” Pepper stated matter-of-factly.

“Not gonna fight you on that,” Tony agreed. Then he remembered the original topic. “Anyway, I get an invite to this shindig?”

The exact moment he heard the word masquerade, his mind immediately jumped to thoughts of Loki and their current arrangement with masks. This would be perfect. He knew it was rash as fuck, but he didn’t care. If everyone was going to be in masks, then what was there to worry about?

“Yes, you did.” Pepper answered. “You’re not planning on going, Tony, are you?”

“Maybe.” He replied evasively. “If I felt like it.”

“Hm.” Pepper just uttered, watching him suspiciously. “You want me to leave the invitation by your work area?”

“Yep.” Tony agreed. Then he added, in an attempt to sound less enthusiastic about it. “Just if I felt like going. I might not, though. Who wants to spend more time with old rich gasbags? They're no fun.”

Pepper eyed him disbelievingly, probably thinking he had a plan to show up in his suit and crash the party, literally, maybe landing on some overprivileged, snooty members of society table. She probably thought he was looking for an ego boost. Or out to cause some shit and wreck shit at the same time.

Eh. He was going to do both. Tony grinned as he imagined bringing in Loki, with none the wiser, and just having fun.

Pepper just looked disturbed as his grin went to previously unheard of levels of satisfaction. “I’m not even going to ask what that look on your face is for. I don’t want to know anything when I get questioned by the police.”

“ _When?_ ” Tony laughed, quoting her specific word choice.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare the end of the year reports for the board. I’d rather not be implicated in this.” Pepper stood up and stepped away to the second floor, holding her head up in an imperious way.

\------

Tony got around immediately to asking Loki to the masquerade, not waiting a minute before Pepper’s shoes disappeared from view on the stairs, when he practically tripped himself rushing down the other stairs to the workroom. _Speedy Gonzales_ didn’t have anything on him.

He dashed through the door after inputting his code (he got it wrong twice, _fuck_ ) and immediately had JARVIS pull up the private channel that he and Loki always talked on.

Tony typed quickly, thankfully not making any typos.

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Hey. Got any plans for New Years Eve?

It was a couple of minutes before Loki responded, seeing as it wasn’t one of their usual times to talk. And he’d probably just gotten back from his holiday travels.

 

> **The_Trickster** : Well, look who turned up.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : No, I don’t have anything planned. Did you wish to meet again?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Yeah, but I’ve got something bigger planned.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Oh really?

Tony could practically feel the lust just radiating off that comment, and imagined hearing just how Loki might say it—English accent and low voice reverberating in his mind. He groaned at his sudden arousal and typed in an answer.

 

 

> **DontStopMeNow** : Let’s spice things up a little bit, babe. I got an invite to a party...and its a masquerade.
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Are you asking me out?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : How’d you like to be my plus-one?
> 
> **The_Trickster** : I’d be delighted
> 
> **The_Trickster** : Is it a formal event?
> 
> **DontStopMeNow** : Yep, its black-tie.
> 
>  

They quickly hashed out the details of going to the charity gala together, arranging to meet about a block away from the location and to head over to the hall together. After logging off, Tony looked down at the box by his desk. It had just arrived from the specialty shop and it looked pretty snazzy if Tony could say so himself. He pulled a long black box from the shipping box it came in. Inside, the green and gold circular—almost geometric looking—designs were complete with a golden fringe at the ends of the rather long scarf. It would suit Loki well. And thanks to the Masquerade, he now had an opportunity to give it to him. Maybe see him wear it.

Tony grinned. Now _that_ would be a sight to behold.

\-----

“You didn’t mention that the party was high profile.” Loki hissed in his ear as they walked toward the entrance to the building.

“Eh?” Tony said, not listening because he was too busy figuring out how to keep his cover in the crowd of people who would have the power to expose him.

The lady who was checking the guest lists and invitations, took Tony’s carefully handed over invitation (with a finger covering his name), and her eyes widened upon seeing his name. She didn't even cross-reference the invite with the guest list.

She began to exclaim, ”It’s such an honor, Mr. S—”, when Tony steered Loki away and into the place, cutting her off rudely. “Yes, yes, thanks.”

Tony was concerned that Loki might have heard the entirety of his name, but figured that nobody would have been able to hear anything over the uproar that followed them as some big-shot actor and actress arrived after they did. Just the terrifying sight of paparazzi appearing out of nowhere like goddamn cockroaches to snap a trillion pictures and overuse the flash would enough to distract anyone.

The pair passed through the archway of the venue—some place in LA he couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. Thank god that he had JARVIS. Otherwise, Pepper would have her hands even more full than they already were. Or even worse, Tony might’ve been forced to use one of those highly inaccurate maps and routing software that had so many bugs they led you straight off an overpass. Tony vaguely pitied the poor souls that didn’t have Stark tech to use.

It seemed like it had been the perfect time to arrive at the gala, because dozens of other couples and groups were also sweeping into the hall with what seemed to be an entire jewelry store’s inventory on display on their persons. Chatter began to rise as socialites recognized each other and were overwhelmed by excitement at seeing their frenemies for the first time in an age. Their definition of an age being about three hours.

Better for us, Tony thought. The more people there are, the less chances there are of us getting recognized in this crowd.

He was startled out of his thoughts by Loki talking close to his ear. “I think it would be best if we divest ourselves of our overcoats. We won’t need them here.”

Tony couldn’t help the grin that was brought to his lips at Loki’s suggestion. He looked through the mask, to find Loki looking down at him, eyes glinting through his own dark green mask. The shorter man’s hand scrabbled at Loki’s chest, and then tugged Loki down to his height by his tie.

“Planning on turning up the heat here—aren’t you, Loki?” he asked, tightening his grip on the tie and probably pulling it uncomfortably tight. Loki’s breath hitched audibly, even in the noisy entryway of the venue, because of how close they were and probably at the reminder of all the things they’ve done in the many hotels of Los Angeles.

Then Loki cleared his throat, and pried his tie out of Tony’s grip, looking at him out the corner of his eye watchfully. “Behave yourself.”

“Come on, Loki. Don’t tell me you didn’t come here thinking about getting lucky?” Tony asked lowly, after they dropped their coats off at coat check.

“As much as I would enjoy it, I hardly think getting arrested for public indecency would count as getting lucky.” Loki muttered. “Aren’t we here to enjoy the evening? Something of a change of pace?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Tony changed the subject. “Hey, are those bacon-wrapped filet mignon hors d'oeuvres over there?”

Loki grinned. “If they are, I wouldn’t say no to having those.”

“There aren’t many things you say no to.” Tony leered. Loki only rolled his eyes and dragged Tony into the crowd of party-goers, in search of the filet mignon.

\----

After thoroughly consuming enough of the high-priced hors d’oeuvres to have them wobbling around the ballroom with full stomachs, Loki still managed to convince Tony to dance. The small orchestra that was hired for the event was in full swing, playing an upbeat waltz, when Loki dragged him out to the dance floor.

It was a little awkward at first, because they both tried to lead, until Loki allowed him to lead with a gracious smile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a prince. After that, it was nothing but smooth sailing. Tony didn’t realize how much he appreciated the dance lessons he’d been forced into by his parents until then. Because they were already enough of a spectacle on the dance floor; being two men, and of different heights.

But nonetheless, Tony enjoyed himself, with Loki in his arms, guiding them seamlessly into another dance. Their movements were unexpectedly in sync most of the time, where other badly matched partners hesitated in their movements.

A thought occurred to Tony, and he asked Loki, “You ever get any kind of training?”

“Specifically...?” he asked.

Tony spun them around as he elaborated. “You know, mixed-martial arts, any kind of fighting style.”

Loki raised his eyebrows visibly. “You have odd topics of conversation.”

He shrugged. “Just thought of it.”

“What made you think of that?” Loki asked.

“I’ve had some training, here and there. And I’ve seen a lot the people who practice some sort of fighting style move the same way as you.” Tony explained. “You seem to anticipate what I’ll do.”

The music changed into an ever faster tempo piece, and they settled easily into it. Loki’s eyes bore into him. “Yes...I have had some instruction in the art of fighting. I was taught from a young age, for personal defense, of course.” Loki added, as if trying to make the reason for learning how to fight extremely clear. “It was deemed necessary by my father, because of the company’s high profile. In case of attempting kidnapping, and such. But what reason would you have for learning?”

Tony smiled, a bit more bitterly than he had intended it to be, because he was reminded of Afghanistan. “Like you said...for self-defense.”

\-----

Their conversation turned to a more pleasant and a safer topic of conversation than it was before. They relaxed into the waltz that followed.

Tony realized that his luck must have run out when he spotted a very nicely dressed redhead that happened to be wearing the necklace he’d gotten Pepper for Christmas.

“Fuck,” he muttered vehemently under his breath. He attempted to keep the same rhythm in their dance but probably got off tempo.  

Loki must have heard it, because he asked with some concern, “What is wrong?”

“It’s nothing. Just thought I recognized someone I work with.” he fibbed. He took the opportunity to steer the waltz a safe distance away from Pepper. Tony had nothing personal about them meeting, but things would get messy if they did. Pepper was way too connected to Tony Stark’s known circle of associates and Loki might get to the right conclusion.

For a moment it seemed as though Loki spun them around for a reason to look around for whoever Tony had recognized, but Loki just leaned down to nip his neck.

Tony smirked when Loki straightened back up to grin at him mischievously, as some older couples near them sniffed in muted outrage at the public display.

Then they danced some more, getting more and more daring with their moves. They laughed, exhilarated, as they flitted between other slower dancing couples, probably taking some beat that wasn’t the actual music that was playing, but maybe just how fast their own hearts were beating.

Tony was in the middle of whispering some terrible comments about the other stuffy guests at the gala, when his eyes caught Pepper’s. She had moved from her previous spot and looked to be nursing a drink. She didn’t do anything except raise her eyebrows, and then engage somebody in a spirited discussion.

Fuck. How had he been recognized by Pepper? He wasn’t even wearing a beard! But then again, Pepper had known that he’d show up. And she was very good at distinguishing faces.

Right before the countdown, Loki and Tony slipped away to a deserted garden sort of area. He pushed into Loki just as the fireworks go off. They clung to each other and the masks just barely stayed on, with the way they were just clawing at each other and running hands through mussed up hair.

They took their New Year’s celebration to a nearby hotel Tony had booked beforehand.

\----

When Tony finally got his bearings after the wild night of fun that had been his New Year’s celebration, he’d driven back to his mansion in the dying sunset of the late afternoon. He stumbled in the entryway, bow tie askew and thrown carelessly ‘round his neck.

“Welcome home, sir.” JARVIS greeted him.

“Hey JARVIS.” Tony grinned in an exhausted yet exhilarated way. “Whoo.” he whooped. “What a night. Remind me why I don’t go to more of these things?”

“Perhaps because this would be the first that your companion has attended with you.”

“When did you get all _Pride & Prejudice_ on me, JARVIS? I don’t need any more of you guys hanging around me.” Tony joked. “No, but, yeah, Loki does seem to liven up these stuffy events.” Tony headed to the master bedroom to change into something that wasn’t last night’s tuxedo.

At the last minute, he took a bit of a running leap and slid impressively into the bedroom. Take _that_ , Hugh Grant. Not that he actually watched any kind of rom-coms with certain ensemble casts.

“So—” Tony clapped his hands. “What’re the headlines for today? Any delayed _Die Hard_ wannabes try anything?”

“The tabloids appear to be having a field day, sir, with your mysterious appearance at the New Years Gala.” JARVIS said.

“What?” Tony pulled one end of the bow-tie and tossed it onto an end table rather distractedly. A finger drifted unconsciously to one of many marks that Loki had placed on his neck. He walked over to his large windows.

“What the _fuck_ are those vultures saying now?” He muttered, accessing the holographic screen on the glass of the huge-ass windows. Not to be confused with the problematic operating system.

JARVIS helpfully pulled up the article that was the least vague and actually had details, so to speak. Tony began reading it:

 

> _“Billionaire playboy Tony Stark hasn’t been seen at many A-list events, or even in public, since his shocking reveal as the hero Iron Man, but trusted sources have confirmed that he attended the ultra exclusive LA 2011 New Year’s Charity Gala that was held just last night. The theme for this year was masquerade, and many celebs attended with glamorous masks. Strangely enough, the playboy was not sighted at the actual black-tie charity event. Many attendees donned their masks at the gala, but removed them to ring in the New Year or maybe earlier. And others did not wear theirs at all!_
> 
> _Most would think that Stark wouldn’t hide his handsome face (named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for several years, and currently in his third consecutive year), but Stark may have actually done so, since many of those attending report not seeing him there._
> 
> _However, some of the staff working the event did comment about Stark’s appearance at the event. Rumors circulated about a valet parking Stark’s car, which is easily recognizable from the make and personalized license plate.  The question that is on everybody’s mind—”_

Tony thought snidely, Oh it’ll be on everybody’s mind now for sure, now that these idiots have posted it on the internet—

> _“The question that is on everybody’s mind is where was Tony Stark? We might even begin to wonder if the infamous playboy is avoiding the public eye for a reason.”_

Tony muttered angrily, “Yeah, I’ve got a reason, and it’s avoiding asshole paparazzi and shitty tabloids.”

 

> _“Could it be that playboy Tony Stark is settling down? That might explain his strange actions when dodging questions about the identity of Iron Man. A source suggested that Stark was probably trying to protect a new flame when hiding who Iron Man really was. Might Stark be dating his loyal PA Pepper Potts, or even someone new?_
> 
> _See[ this slideshow](http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121014221521/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/c/cb/185px-Photol5.jpg) for possible and eligible heiresses and celebrities rumored to be involved with Stark._
> 
> _Recommended links:_
> 
> _- Tony Stark’s Top 10 Public Appearances_
> 
> _- Tony Stark to Build Stark Tower in NYC_
> 
> _- Behind the Newest Superhero—Iron Man_
> 
> _-[ Throwback Thursday: This Pic of DILF Young Howard Stark](http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120513053539/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/thumb/9/97/StarkSuperSoldier.jpg/640px-StarkSuperSoldier.jpg)_
> 
> •••

At the last recommended link, Tony felt like actually barfing. “Oh God. I think the room service and those hors d'oeuvres from last night are trying to come back up. JARVIS, get that gossip rag out of my face. That last link is fucking traumatizing, and staying blue forever. I do not want to read that shit about my old man.”  

“Yes, sir. This seems to have been a brush with Rule 36 of the internet.”

Tony crashed his forehead into the glass. “I just knew that letting you know about those things on the internet was just going to come back and bite me in the ass one day.” He tried to put the tabloid article out of his mind and attempted to go change into something comfortable—without thinking about that last link and gagging. Tony failed miserably on the last count, because he had the scum-baggiest of brains that loved to bring up unwelcome memories.

The billionaire emerged from his walk-in closet wearing some sweatpants and a random t-shirt. He strode over to the bedside table to pick up up the bow-tie, but paused when bringing it into the light of the sunset. Was that a trick of the light, or was the fabric actually green? He could have sworn his own bow-tie had been black silk…

He turned the fabric over in his hands, and caught the subtle green in the undone bow-tie. Tony briefly remembered untying the bow-tie from Loki’s tuxedo in their haste to get undressed. He grinned at the memory of finally getting it undone and tossing it carelessly over his shoulder.

Upon first glance, the bow-tie looked like it was a glossy black but shone a dark green in the right light. Tony supposed that he must have gotten the ties mixed up when they got dressed not three hours ago.

A little memento from the New Years celebration. Tony grinned as he pocketed the long strip of silk.

\-----

The next day, Tony was alerted by JARVIS. “Colonel Rhodes has arrived, sir.”

Tony looked up from the screen to see Rhodey walk into the workshop.

“How many times do I have to tell your AI to not call me that?” Rhodey wondered aloud. “Makes me feel like I’m at the air base.”

He grabbed a chair and settled into it backwards. “So.” Rhodey said expectantly.

“So.” Tony countered, faking obliviousness, when he knew exactly why Rhodey was there. Well. And maybe because it was 2-for-1 Pizza Tuesday. It was a stupid tradition because Tony was a billionaire and no need to worry about money. But he and Rhodey had started the tradition when they'd been at MIT together. Howard had cut Tony off from his trust fund while he was at college, after way too many wild parties he'd thrown as a student. So he'd been essentially as broke as any other college student. But now that he was a lot better off, he ordered from a random local place that had great pizza and overpaid and overtipped ridiculously for the pizzas.

Rhodey didn’t bother continuing Tony’s little charade. Because he’d known Tony for so long that he knew precisely where this would end up. Degenerating into a ping-pong game of them shouting “So?” at each other defiantly until they ended up sounding like a demented singing duo trying to get a pitch right.

“So what’s this I hear from Pepper—that you went to the charity ball with a _friend_?” he put special emphasis on the word, clearly meaning the other type of friend.

“Yep.” Tony answered eloquently.

“And?” Rhodey prodded.

Tony sighed. “And you don’t have to worry because you’ll always be my best friend.”

“What.” Rhodey squawked, not expecting a Tarzan-style confession. Then he got his bearings somewhat together again.  “No, Tony, I didn’t come here to get a reassurance that I’ll always be your best friend, because man, that’s your business.” Rhodey looked serious, which had Tony inching away covertly.

Because, damn, he wasn’t really in the right mindset for dealing with things seriously. At this point, he was seconds away from making jokes that he wanted a holo AC/DC to play at his funeral. Or even _“Highway to Hell”_ seemed like a good choice, depending on the reasons for _when_ , not _if_ , Pepper finally killed him out of righteous rage.

“Pepper and I are just concerned about who you’re talking to. Because we know that there’ll be a helluva bunch of people trying to take their lucky break from you, now that they know that you’re Iron Man.”

“Rhodey, does it look like I was born yesterday?” Tony asked jokingly. “You know I’ve got this. Dealing with the moochers is my specialty. Don’t worry.”

“You see,” Rhodey said. “That’s what really worries me. The fact that you think that you’ve got this completely handled is always a bad sign for you. You’ve always had some weird ways of dealing with things.”

“Unorthodox,” Tony said, smirking. “That’s me.”

“What you do is your business… but just promise us—promise _me_ , your buddy—that you won’t do any stupid-ass stuff.”

Tony sobered at the look in Rhodey’s eyes. “Okay, okay. I promise.” he agreed. Then he muttered, “Should’ve called you ‘mother’ instead of Rhodey. You worry more than my mom ever did.”

“Since when did your mom ever get crazy ass drunk with you?” Rhodey countered, laughing.

“Not mine, that’s for sure.” Tony chuckled. He got up from his chair and started heading out of the workroom. “C’mon—hope you didn’t forget about pizza night.”

“How could I? You blew up my phone with those damn texts you sent me, going on and on about how much pizza you’re going to stuff your face with.” Rhodey followed him out and up the stairs, now snickering. “Who’s going to help the poor sap who delivers the shit load of pizzas to Iron Man’s mansion gates?” he said mockingly.

“I’ll ask Happy. He hasn’t left yet and we can give him a box to pay him back.”

“Okay. But this time, I’m choosing the movie. I am sick to death from watching ‘The Mask’ for the fiftieth time this month. Don’t you ever get tired of it?” Rhodey complained.

“No, man, you can’t knock a classic like that—”

“A classic.” Rhodey snorted. “The movie’s hardly Casablanca or Schindler’s list, Tony.”

“It’s a comedy classic, then.” Tony amended pointedly.

“You just like it so much because the guy puts on a mask and suddenly he can do whatever he wants,” Rhodey said. “Just like a little someone I know.”

“Okay, enough picking on the superhero now,” Tony replied peevishly. Suddenly, he wasn't all that comfortable with Rhodey casually mentioning masks to him and not realizing the implications. "And, for your information, it's a helmet, Rhodey."

"Got it." Rhodey answered smugly like a guy who knew he'd won anyway.

Then Happy came in, haphazardly balancing a stack of pizza boxes taller than he was.

Pepper mysteriously came from the second floor, where she’d made her new workstation, which made Tony think she’d been waiting to hear from Rhodey and hadn’t gone home.

It was like he wasn’t quite sure whether to feel warm and content that his friends cared for him so much, or to be peeved that they were sticking their noses in where they shouldn’t be at all. He settled for being mildly irritated that they were plotting behind his back. Hey, he’d sort of reformed himself on his wobbly way to becoming Iron Man, but that didn’t include his personal defenses to certain things. It was just automatic.

Tony’s suspicions were confirmed when Rhodey nodded in a covert way at her, and her tense look morphed into one of relief.

“How nice to see you here, Pepper,” Tony told her snidely.

“Oh, you know me,” Pepper replied evenly, without the bat of an eyelash. “Working late on preparing more information to give to the press. They’ve been salivating over any bit of new info they can get on you. They can’t seem to get enough of Iron Man.” she ended somewhat sarcastically.

Tony stared fixedly at her, clearly seeing some sort of ploy at work here, but really kind of unable to see it completely. It was like looking for Waldo at a fucking Fourth of July celebration--with everyone wearing red and white stripes. He wasn’t sure if it was more of the ‘warm, fuzzy friendship’ card, or maybe them playing a more sinister card. Like house arrest for 6 more months.

Turns out he didn’t have to come up with more conspiracy theories (were the three friends planning a coup or planning his next birthday party? Never mind it was several, _many_ months away from now) because Rhodey provided it for him. (Though Tony didn’t really appreciate it, _Rhodey_.)

“Time for a raise!” Rhodey called, taking out some paper plates and napkins to serve the pizza on and to wipe the remnants of pizza-warstains.

“Nobody asked you, Rhodey.” Tony snarked.

Rhodey looked at him undisturbed, as he took a huge slice of pizza, rolled it into a giant pizza burrito monstrosity of cheesiness and perfection, and chomped down on the bundle of awesome.

...which was actually from his own box of pizza, Tony realized, eyes darting from the box to the pizza-burrito that Rhodey was enjoying with gusto. Tony’s eyes widened. “Hey! Thats my pizza.”

“Don’t see your name on it.”

Tony nearly exploded from the sheer amount of extreme indignation that was flowing through him, but Pepper stepped in.

“Enough, boys. No need to fight over food here.” She reasoned calmly as she always did. Then she added, “And Tony, you have like three more boxes of your favorite pizza. You don’t need to throw a fit.”

“I wasn’t throwing one, “Tony argued, and then tried to protest. “But it's the principle of the matter—”

Tony snapped his mouth shut with an audible snap. He decided wouldn’t fight this battle because it’d probably end worse for him. Like Tony literally having to deal with sharks if Pepper threw him to the paparazzi. The way those _sonofabitches_ scented wealthy celebrity blood...Tony wouldn’t be surprised if the fuckers were the result of some experiment with shark DNA gone horribly, and sleazily bad.

He took all three of his pizza boxes (minus the one slice Rhodey had so heartlessly swiped already) with his favorite specialty toppings (the place called it the ‘big boss’, a pizza topped with pepperoni, bacon, italian sausage, beef, and canadian bacon), hoarding the pile near his spot on the couch, just daring Rhodey to try and take another slice.

So then the quartet settled themselves into to enjoy a movie and piles of pizza; Tony sitting on the far left end of the couch, Rhodey on the right end, and Pepper settled between them. Happy gladly took his seat on the other long couch that was at an angle to theirs.

“Everyone got their stuff?” Tony asked the room at large. He directed the next bit to his best friend. “I’m not giving you my fucking pizza, even if you ask nicely, honeybear.”

“Just get the show on the road, Tony.” Rhodey just told him testily. Tony just rolled his eyes.

“JARVIS? Get Mr. Head-In-The-Clouds his movie. And dim the lights, would ya?” Tony said.

The AI asked Rhodey. “Which movie would you like to watch, Colonel?”

Rhodey grinned and immediately answered, “Ocean’s Eleven.”

Tony groaned and muttered “Still not Casablanca.”  To which Rhodey bantered back, “Did I get the memo wrong for tonight, or is it ‘ _cinematic masterpieces only_ ’ movie night?”

“...”

“That’s what I thought."

JARVIS pulled up the movie on the holoscreen and the opening frames of ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ flashed onto the screen.

Tony piped up, “I still think ‘ _The Mask_ ’—”

“SHUT UP TONY!” rang through the room. With the addition of Rhodey tagging on a lighthearted, sort of joking “Eat your damn pizza!”

He shut up, but without any sort of consternation. He had a strange fuzzy feeling growing in his chest. Tony cocked his head. Maybe it was time to change out the reactor? He’d have JARVIS check it out later.

Tony leaned back in the couch, feeling oddly content. He had his friends here with him, and it felt like family. Maybe a weird, mismatched, sometimes at odds, sort of family--but it was the closest thing he had to it now. And he was okay with that.

What was even better was the outcome of the talk he had with Rhodey. He might’ve expected something like a Spanish Inquisition (Obligatory: “NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION--!”), but somehow it hadn’t turned out that way. And the secret of Loki as to remain so for another day. Loki would still be there to talk to whenever he wanted. And he had his buddies here with him.

What could go wrong?

\--------------

 

Tony signed on to their private IRC channel, anticipating a good talk with Loki. Maybe cracking jokes about the gala or just having a good time. But...there was silence from Loki. Tony typed a quick greeting and it was met with no response. He figured that the other man must be busy, and got to working on other stuff, like making the suit portable. It’d be pretty useful if he could transport the suit and have it on him in an emergency.

When he checked their channel after an hour...there was no response. And it was the same story when he checked three hours later, a nagging feeling tugging in his throat. He tried to put it out of his mind but that doesn’t stop him from checking again another three hours later.

Two days later, if he was awake, he’d check every hour to see if Loki had responded. The last time Loki logged on, the day of the gala, New Years Eve, mocked him with the reminder of the last time they talked.

It was like Loki dropped off the face of the Earth. 

And it was on the tenth day of the new year that Tony gave up.

Tony tried not to let it bother him because it wasn’t as though they actually had something. Something solid. Something tangible. Something of a bond. They never had anything that was real, because what could be formed on typed words and caresses done with masks?

Tony tried to forget. He tried to ignore those feelings that had sprung up out of left field. Emotions that he couldn’t justify, or understand. His stubble had begun to look like the beginnings of a rough beard. He made no move to return it to those days when a bare face was his disguise.

Everything was as it had been before that night of Halloween, when this fling had all started. No Loki in his life.

It was nearly midnight when Tony was preparing to go to sleep that he noticed something strange in the mirror.

“Hey, JARVIS, are you seeing this?” he asked. “Some weird marks on my chest, near the arc reactor...”

[ [ [ [ [ [ End Act 1 ] ] ] ] ] ]

* * *

 [ Act 2 ]

_A year and several months later_

Tony was packing his tools and other things away in a duffle bag. It was mostly just stuff that he wouldn’t have ready for him at the nearly complete Stark Tower. It seemed pretty amazing how he’d been in negotiations and in so many boring meetings a year ago, and to have it finally result in his precious. His _precious_.

Tony had to clear his throat to stop himself from repeating the phrase aloud like a demented Gollum—which was basically the same thing, anyway. Gollum was crazy enough without having to say anything else about the creature.

He was looking forward to overseeing the last changes to the tower, and making his own mark on the tower—connecting the tower’s power to an arc reactor not unlike the new design he had in his chest. He hummed along to the song JARVIS had playing in the workroom, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, and itched to get out of the workroom and fly his suit one last time before he left for New York. Tony had a feeling that they might just be a little less forgiving about unknown flying objects in their city, compared to Malibu. He still had to let somebody know that Iron Man was going to be taking residence in the Big Apple for the next couple of months.

But Tony still had to make sure all his stuff was packed before even running to go jump in his suit. He sorted through a box with random shit that he was sure he probably didn’t need anything from. At the very bottom of the box, under a whole stack of sticky notes he never used, was a lint and dust-covered burgundy velvet mask.

He stared at the mask, like he’d seen a ghost. The unwelcome ghost of things he hadn’t wanted to remember. God, had it really been more than a year since he could even stop to think about … Loki? It seemed like a lifetime ago, really, those days where he’d been much more freer and high off his new success as Iron Man. Before Stark Tower, before Hammer, before Vanko, and...before the palladium poisoning.

Had he really been so different before? So untouched by the taint of poison in his veins, by the revenge seeking son of the man that his dad worked with, by the bitter taste of inevitable defeat, by his friends deserting him, by the furious anger at himself?

Tony’s expression was still closed off when he noticed Pepper walking down the steps and punching in her code. Quickly, he stuffed the mask anywhere he could hide it. He sure as hell didn’t want her to revisit her own old memories of them—unwittingly bringing the dreaded Pepper inquisition down on himself.

“Heeey.” he greeted her, unconvincingly casual.

She made an amused face at his cop out. Then her business face returned. “Don’t forget, Tony, the plane leaves at nine tomorrow morning. And just because you own the plane doesn’t mean it won’t take off without you.” She smiled sweetly. “And then you’ll have a nice seat on a commercial flight. In _economy_.”

“You wouldn’t!” Tony uttered, horrified.

“Try me, Tony, just try me.” she threatened. Pepper changed her voice to a more reasonable tone, saying, “If you get to the plane on time, well, that won’t be a problem, will it?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good to see we’re on the same page,” Pepper nodded. Tony rolled his eyes and then pretended to ruffle through papers busily.

“Thanks, Nanny McPhee!” he told her without looking up. Tony heard her stifle a snickering laugh as she tottered up the stairs in high heels.

Once he was sure that she was gone, he turned back to the mask in the bag. He considered it thoughtfully, a thumb brushing on the silk lining of the inside of the mask.

If he closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend that it was just that moment that he had danced with Loki at the charity masquerade ball, unable to take his eyes off lithe figure twisting and turning in his tuxedo and eyes so deliciously green and naughty. They’re floating in the crowd of waltzers and flying through each note of the music being played by the orchestra, Tony knowing quite well that he was rather shorter than Loki but feeling like they were on equal ground. They’re dancing through the night, feeling like they’re alone in their own world, because no one else knew who any of them were. And they’re running through the entryway of the gala, to some place, crashing into each other to make it somewhere before they devour each other at the countdown to another year. They’re pressed against each other, skin to skin for the last time…

“DUM-E?” he snapped. The robot moved from whatever random shit it was doing. “Do this one thing right,” he told his robot. “and get rid of this.”

He tossed the mask in the general direction of the arm of the bot. Dum-E made some accepting beeping noises. His words seemed to echo with a sad sense of finality in the large workroom. Tony scoffed at his sentimentality and then left to go pack some clothes upstairs.

Like the repressing, stubborn man he was, Tony tried to forget that he even found the mask again. The very symbol of what he lost.

\-----

The weeks passed very quickly as soon he arrived in New York. He was constantly meeting with the overseers of the construction. And holding press conferences that Pepper forced him to go to, so that he could appease the board about what an awesome decision it was to approve the Tower.

 _I mean_ , Tony thought, _Why wouldn’t a giant tower with my name on it_ not _be the best thing in the galaxy?_

Tony spent a lot of the time walking around on the street below the tower, smugly enjoying the letters they’d just installed on the top. _Stark_ , it read, loud and clear, for about a hundred miles. He was certain he’d enjoy it more when he could switch the power grid for Stark Tower to the modified arc reactor. Oh, he was as excited as a kid stepping into FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue for the first time. He really could visualize what a crowning achievement it was for him. It being about a year ago when he was certain that he was going to straight up croak. Kick the bucket. Give the last hurrah. Buy the farm in the sky, and all that junk.  Yeah, he hadn’t been able to imagine anything beyond him getting fragged.

Anyway, he was well past being giddy about seeing the huge tower being all lit up with his tech and his name illuminated in blue light.

It was early April when he called up Rhodey and talked seriously about the design and the decor details. Which was code for them talking about where to put the pool table, ball pit, laser tag room, ping pong table, and the giant chess set. He didn’t actually know how to play much chess beyond the few times he’d played with JARVIS--and gotten completely and soundly beaten. But the thought of having a huge chess set sounded cool. Maybe he could sneak up on people and toss a giant knight piece at them like something out of _Punk’d_.

He spent like an hour trying to get Rhodey to live at the Tower once it was completely finished. And by that, he meant he tried asking casually, then moved on gradually to griping, threatening, and then whining at Rhodey to come to New York.

Nonetheless, Tony’s efforts to get Rhodey to stay in NYC with him at Stark Tower and have a bro sleepover, were all fruitless as the Air Force currently had him going around on a mission for the time being. Rhodey apologetically told him the reality over the phone.

“Sorry, man,” Rhodey said. “They’ve got me on this assignment in the middle east for the next couple of months.”

“You’re missing out on laser tag thursdays, Rhodey,” Tony warned. “And two-for-one pizza tuesday!”

Rhodey sighed. “Yeah, I know. Rain check for when I get back?”

“Okay,” Tony grumbled.

“Don’t get pissy on me, Tony.” Rhodey told him. “You know I have no control over it. And what are you complaining for? You’ve got your Tower and everything’s going great for you.”

“I know, I know. I’m just...not feeling right. Thought too much about last year.”

“That was...just a really bad time for you.” Rhodey said, carefully. “Just try not to think too much about it. Maybe talk to Pepper, since I’m over here with limited coverage.”

“She’s busy,” Tony said sharply. "Still in LA."

“I don’t know what to say then, Tony,” he said. “Maybe...Do one thing for yourself. Don’t shut yourself out from the world. Go out and see New York while you’ve got the chance, before every nutcase figures out you’re actually there and stakes out the Tower to get an autograph, or something.”

That...actually seemed helpful. So that was why he kept Rhodey around all these years.

“Thanks, can-of-war.”

His statement was met with a groan from Rhodey. He’d mangled his superhero name of ‘War Machine’ so many times that it was just sad now. Then the guy had the nerve to hang up on him. Tony muttered passive-aggressively at his phone, and then got up to look closer at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse.

The penthouse was one of the first spots in the tower to be completed, and Tony was glad for that, seeing as he now had an inexplicable aversion to hotels—and _that_ had nothing to do with masks or people whose names started with L. Nope.

He stood in front of the window, enjoying the view that his Tower had over New York. And best of all was that Stark Tower was marginally taller than the Empire State Building. This filled him with a certain kind of glee that had him waving at the people on the observation deck slightly below the penthouse.

His snickering faded away when he realized some tourists were waving back from the coin operated binoculars. And that they could probably see him very clearly.

“Shit.” he said suddenly. “I’ve got to get some fucking shutters.”

\-------

 

And it was two weeks later, almost mid-April, when Tony decided to take up Rhodey’s advice and take a walk around New York. Sure, he’d been in the city more times than he could care to count, but he wouldn’t hurt to experience the city like anybody else. Not surrounded by an entourage of well-heeled professionals intent on getting his tech or his money. No thanks, blood-sucking assholes of the corporate world.

Tony wasn’t stupid enough to go out in a nice suit and his trademark red-tinted sunglasses, where anyone would recognize him. He left Stark Tower through a back exit dressed incognito with some jeans, a ratty band t-shirt, a red jacket, and some plain-looking black Holbrook Oakley sunglasses he’d brought from Malibu.

Tony felt like wandering through the touristy areas first, because if he was found out in really trafficked spots, he could retreat to the quieter sections of the city. Well, as much as NYC could be. His first trip was through Times Square and all its over-lighted and packed glamour.

Of course, it was only his luck that after he finished browsing through the Swatch store, and had stepped out into Times Square that something happened right there in front of him. Tony had begun walking in the direction of the Tkts booths when some guy ran into traffic without looking at where he was going. The guy then just stopped in the middle of Times Square and turned all the way around, staring at all the signs, like he’d never seen anything like it before in his life.

Tony muttered in a disparaging tone, “Tourist,” while shaking his head.

And he would have put the incident out of mind if several identical, black SUVs hadn’t quickly surrounded the man. A bunch of guys in suits swiftly exited the SUVs and made a perimeter. A good thing, since the crowd quickly formed around it, eager to see the showdown. Tony, unable to help himself, rushed forward to see what the deal was. He had a nagging feeling that the scene was more than it appeared.

His jaw dropped when Nick Fury stepped out of one of the black SUVs. Some crazy ass SHIELD shit was obviously going down.

Tony managed to hear Fury say to the guy, “You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years.”

Tony’s brain went into overdrive. Not many people were referred to as ‘Cap’ by Fury...and it was even less people that Tony knew that had their titles shortened. And one of those had been in frequent use by his own dad.

Unless...but there was no way SHIELD had the capability to resurrect people. SHIELD was pretty talented at certain things, but they weren’t wizards, or something. Tony caught a look at the guy’s face and profile as he looked all around him in shock. That guy—

“No fucking way!” Tony shouted. That got Fury’s attention momentarily, his single eye zeroing in on him in the crowd. “Shit,” Tony muttered, lowering his head and trying not to get any more attention.

No way did he want another visit from Fury again. It was like he was the one-eyed SHIELD tooth-fairy of spies. Now that was a guy you probably didn’t want to a visit from. Unless you wanted to have “ _Go The Fuck To Sleep_ ” read to you as a bedtime story.

Fury turned his attention back on the guy who turned out to be Captain America, of all people. Wasn't this guy supposed to be, like, freedom-cubes in the North Pole?

Stuff happened and the guy, sorry, _Captain Ice Block_ , went quietly in the back of one of the black SUVs, still looking pretty shell-shocked. The crowd eventually dispersed, but only because they were disappointed that nothing else was happening. Classic New York City.

Fury made his way over to where Tony was still standing with his hands in his jacket pockets and hood up like a hoodlum. Fury, who had the stereotypical spy getup consisting of a long black trench coat, loomed over him, looking more unimpressed by the minute.

“Stark.” he said, unflappable as usual.

“Keep it down!” Tony said in a undertone rather hastily, looking around if anyone had heard.

“No one’s paying attention.” Fury told him. “Is that the reason why you’re dressed like you’re about to mug somebody?”

Tony snorted. “Stereotypes. By you, of all people.” Then he pulled off his sunglasses. It was drizzling anyway, so he didn’t even need them. “I felt like going sightseeing. And didn’t want to get mobbed by fans.”

Fury nodded. “I heard you were in New York again, some weeks ago, right?”

Tony’s eye twitched. He didn’t like the idea of people following him or noting every single movement that he made. SHIELD had always watched him too closely. Knowing when he was being poisoned by the palladium even when his best friends hadn’t known. And his paranoia from a year ago made all the more sense now. At least only Pepper and Rhodey knew the vaguest extent of his relations with Loki.

“Yeees.” He drew out the word slowly. Then he turned the tables on Fury. “Was that guy who I think he was?”

Fury eyed him suspiciously. “Steve Rogers, yes. He just woke up. Panicked before we could explain and ran out the building.”

Tony rubbed at his beard in thought. Sounded an awful lot like SHIELD had kept Captain America in custody for a while. He was going to hope for the best and trust that SHIELD hadn’t, like, kept the dude in Area 51 or some other place for seventy years.

“Wasn’t he getting cozy with Santa’s elves, and shit, in the North Pole?”

Fury looked deeply displeased at telling him more information, but seemed like he thought better of telling SHIELD’s billionaire consultant to piss off. “A team found the plane he had crashed, and later on, him as well. Happened the fourteenth.”

“Well, shit.”

“You’ve got that right.” Fury agreed. His phone beeped, and he glanced down at it. “Well, my time’s up. I’m needed elsewhere.”

“Bye.” Tony nodded.

“We’ll be in touch.” Fury said ominously. “And be careful who you tell about Cap, got it?”

Tony squinted at him. “Yeah.”

Fury swished away like one of the badass rebel guys from the _Matrix_ , and disappeared into the SUV waiting for him. As soon as the car door slammed shut, the tires squealed as it took off into traffic.

Tony stared after it, slowly shaking his head. “Fuck,” he said, still in disbelief. “Can’t get a day’s rest without something happening.” He slid his shades back on, noticing that people were looking in his direction. He walked smoothly into the flow of pedestrians on the sidewalk, trying to reclaim the earlier peace he’d sort of had. It was a lost cause because he couldn’t forget how it’d just happened right in front of him.

He just gave up and started to head back to the Tower. Unexpectedly running into SHIELD, Fury, and a hero everyone had assumed was long frozen, kinda threw a wrench in his plans for the day. Tony tried to reassure himself that at least he hadn’t been mobbed. Yet.

He mumbled, “I guess I should be glad that it was not an alien invasion I saw.”

In retrospect, considering what happened a few weeks later, that was probably the worst comment he could have made.

\------

 

Some two weeks later, Pepper had flown in to New York after wrapping up some last minute things in Los Angeles. Tony finally got the reactor installed and successfully powered up Stark Tower with his tech. 

And then Coulson broke into his tower and told him about the Avengers Initiative being underway to deal with some ‘mysterious threat’. The agent tried to hand him a tablet with the necessary files, but Tony dodged it. And then Pepper took the champagne he’d used to celebrate the installation of the new power source. She swapped the glass with the tablet, and left him to suffer though a shit-load of files.

As they left, he could hear Coulson trying not to gush about being one of the agents that watched Captain America as he defrosted. Thankfully, the elevator shut on both Pepper and Coulson—whose name he just realized with Agent _Phil_ Coulson. Huh. The guy got the short end of the stick with his name being 'Agent'. With a name like that, you were practically obligated to go into some sort of work that fit the name. Tony once met a guy whose name was Dr.  _Doctor_. _True story, bro._

At least, in Coulson's case he had a normal sounding middle and last name.

Tony frowned unhappily down at the tablet that Pepper had forced on him. It looked like he had a long night ahead of him. He glanced at the files available on the device and found two fairly large files. They weren't named in any way descriptively, just with a bunch of numbers for file names, so Tony randomly picked one to sift through. It was the one with a slightly smaller file size, figuring he'd see what he'd be reading last. The file opened to a fairly grainy picture that looked like it had been screen-grabbed from an even worse source with a terrible resolution. And to make matters worse, the man in the picture was blurry from being in mid-movement. Tony could barely make out the sickly pale man, who had what looked like shoulder-length dark hair. And weird clothes.

Tony shrugged and closed the file. He'd get to it later, he thought. Then upon opening the next numerical file, quickly revised his previous assumption, seeing the many scientific papers and journals that numbered in the hundreds. 

_I'll look at it later...like maybe next year. Because now it looks like I have a hot date with some scientific papers until then._

\------

The next day, Tony had been about to call the SHIELD hotline—did that even exist?—to spout his newly acquired expertise in thermonuclear astrophysics at anyone who would listen, but instead received a call from SHIELD before he could dial the number.

He stared at his phone, ringing with the standard tone rather than his usual “Another One Bites The Dust”. Who the hell had changed the ringtone? And for that matter, how did he get Fury’s number on his phone?

Tony tapped the ‘Answer’ rectangular option on his phone gingerly. “Hello?” he asked, holding it at an arms reach away, as though it were a huge spider. He wasn't sure if he was going to get a random telling off, or another reason to run for it while he could.

“Stark.” came Fury’s voice from the phone. “Change of plans. We were going to have you meet us on the helicarrier, but we need you to go as backup for Romanoff and Rogers. You’ll be receiving the exact coordinates in two minutes. Send a list to Coulson if you want anything to be picked up.” He hanged up after stating the quick facts.

Tony stared at his phone that Fury just hanged up so suddenly on. “Well, JARVIS. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a road trip.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve just received the coordinates to a location in Europe.” JARVIS replied. “It appears to be Stuttgart, Germany.”

“Yeah, yeah, just set up the route and I’ll grab the suit.” Tony hadn’t heard a word beyond Europe because he began thinking about crepes and other food. He started toward the helipad and the suit assembler machinery, but stopped at the glass door.

“On second thought, lemme grab a bite to eat before we go.”

\---

Tony arrived on the scene but decided to hang back to watch what was happening. It looked like Rip Van Icicle down there could hold his own for a while.

“Ah, the soldier.” A pale man sneered. Then he looked around exaggeratedly. “And here I thought that resurrection was limited to that of movies and certain religious sects. Last I heard, you were dead.” He grinned a little too widely. “I wasn’t aware that they had invited you, my zombie friend, to this spectacle.”

“Knock it off, Loki.” Rogers said firmly. “I’m here to take you into SHIELD custody. And we all know why.”

Here Tony’s mind stuttered to a stop. _Wait, what?_ he thought. _Now that’s a terrible fucking coincidence. How many guys were cursed by their parents by naming them Loki?_

“Do you?” Loki queried, still looking a touch too entertained. “Perhaps a senior moment has finally caught up with you, and your feeble, mortal mind, the one they call Captain America—”

What followed didn’t exactly look like a friendly glomp, as they say. So Tony took the opportunity to finally reveal himself. He dropped in on the grappling pair, literally.

He actually landed pretty roughly on the cobbled street, crushing and cracking a couple of bricks. “Whoops,” he muttered, still braced for impact and crouched. “I’ll send them a check later for the damages.”

Loki shifted out of his crouched combat pose, choosing to straighten up at Tony’s arrival. He tilted his head to survey him with slightly narrowed eyes. Tony, who always seized any and all opportunities for showing off, rose from the rubble impressively.

“Stark.” Rogers nodded at him. As well as he could from the floor.

“Do you need me to call Life-Alert? ‘ _Help I’ve fallen and can’t get up_ ’ and all that jazz?” Tony asked, with just the tiniest bit of snide comment. Rogers probably realized it was a not-so-subtle dig, so he got up quickly.

“The billionaire-playboy,” the other man there commented, eyeing the suit. “Iron Man, was it?”

“In the flesh,” Tony replied. Then he amended. “But, you know, technically in the suit, really.”

“Remarkable,” he remarked. Was that sarcasm that he detected?

“Nice hat,” Tony said. “And by nice hat, I mean nice ass.”

Loki—that was his name? Tony wasn't convinced he hadn't misheard it—narrowed his eyes and looked amusedly perplexed at Tony. Because most guys probably didn’t get hit on by a guy in a suit (read: tin can) that looked like it was the science fiction equivalent of a Gryffindor flag.

Rogers over there had his eyes darting from him to Loki, bewildered, with his mouth slightly open. It wasn’t really—all in all—an attractive sight. Tony would bet all his cars that Coulson was up on the helicarrier with his face pressed to the live feed of wherever the hell they were. Somewhere in Germany, probably. Maybe seeing his idol do such an accurate impression of a wide-mouthed frog might finally shut up Coulson. He’d been such a Cap fanboy even before the defrosting of Rogers that Tony was nearly sick to death of it.

(And to be honest, Tony would be glad once Coulson stopped practically glowing every time Captain America was even barely mentioned. It’d been scary how the agent had gone from total badass secret agent, and done a complete one-eighty to turn into this bashful fanboy. Sheesh.)

“Uh. Stark.” Natasha’s voice came from the hovering quinjet that had just arrived behind them. “You do realize that this guy is supposed to be our prisoner, for the crimes he committed against SHIELD.”

“What?” Tony exclaimed. “No one told me that. All Coulson did was tell me to read a shit-load of files and then he spent the rest of the time talking about Captain Vanilla Ice Cube over here.” he motioned at Steve, who looked confused until he decided it was probably an insult.

Loki, on the other hand, looked like he was holding in a great laugh. Tony thought he saw him mouth “Vanilla Ice” and “Ice Cube” before closing his eyes to shake with laughter silently.

Tony just continued on like he hadn’t seen anything odd happen, but he was inwardly pleased that someone got his joke! “For all I know, we’re at some kind of German Comic Con and Mister America Pageant Winner from about _nineteen-forty_ over here, decided to spar with hot guy with the hat over there.” Tony winked. But no one saw it because of his helmet.

Hot guy spoke up. “I am flattered, but I have a battle helmet with _horns_.”

“Are we talking about the object, or your current physiological state?” Tony asked archly.

The guy just smirked at him. Which seemed way too out of place outside the bedroom, as the guy kept that same expression while doing a weird magic thing and vanished the extra gold and horns.

Tony just then realized that he’d been nodding at the guy while he did the transformation thing. He realized that he’d been just like those sleazy guys at strip clubs that nodded lasciviously in approval as some stripper removed their clothes. _Fuck_.

Steve and Natasha presumably both put their faces in their palms because there was an immediate _thunk_ heard from the quinjet that Natasha was flying, and a shit load of microphone feedback from Steve’s end.

Natasha groaned from somewhere off mic and then brought her mic closer to order them, ”Just take him away, boys.”

Tony quipped. “Bake ‘im away, toys.” while the supposedly hot prisoner seemed to suppress another grin.

“And for god’s sake, keep your latent horndog tendencies under control, Tony!”

“I am!” Tony exclaimed defensively. He sniped back. “You just believe the tabloids too much Romanoff.”

“My job is to gather intelligence, Stark.” she replied. “Unlike you, the billionaire that has nothing else to do than to hit on prisoners of SHIELD.”

“In my defense, I state again that I had no idea who the guy was. And I plead the fifth.”

Natasha snorted and turned back to the controls of the quinjet, preparing it to fly back to the helicarrier. Steve and Tony brought the ‘prisoner’ on board. As they did, Tony argued still with Natasha, like a guy who couldn’t really give up the fight.

“And like you said, you’re intelligence. My job is science, mostly tech. Can’t blame the consulting tech guy for not knowing, can you?”

They had the prisoner take a seat on the quinjet, where they strapped him in so that he couldn’t escape. Tony had to really bite his tongue so that he wouldn’t comment “ _Kinky!_ ” at the tying up part. So instead, while he did up one of the buckles for the Loki’s seat, he asked at large to the whole quinjet.

“So, um, where are we exactly anyway?”

It was the prisoner, Loki, who answered him. 

“Stuttgart, Germany.” he said, the guy’s eyes looking oddly crystalline from where Tony stood close, as he finished the last of the buckles. The eyes were a kind of sickly ice blue that he swore flickered to green. His head was angled strangely, like he was trying to suss out Tony, and watched him out of the corner of his eyes. Dude probably hadn’t seen a nice suit like Tony’s before. Tony—never the one to miss an opportunity to stroke his, er, _ego_ —began to preen inwardly. And that didn’t stop Tony from swaggering around the quinjet like he owned it.

Natasha turned to look the trio in the cargo bay, eyes flashing in warning at Tony. He understood it pretty easily: _don’t fucking fraternize with the damn prisoners_. But probably with more Russian swearing. Like that time she pretended to not be a spy pretending to be a normal assistant

Huh. He never did figure out what she had told him in his office at Stark Industries. Tony was still convinced that she had swore at him.

Tony took up a position on the opposite site of the cargo hold, the farthest from Loki, like he was a strange temptation he had to keep far away from. But unfortunately, that position also had him right in front of Loki, damn it. Rogers stood on the other side, behind the cockpit area where Natasha was controlling the quinjet. He pulled back his Cap hood-mask thing and stood at parade rest.

And Tony just stood there, trying to figure out what the nagging feeling he’d had ever since joining the pair was. There was something familiar here...

“You’re not going to take off the helmet?” Steve nodded toward Tony.

“Nope.” Tony replied. “I designed it to be plenty comfy. And it also plays music inside it, so if you decide to go on an old man rant that starts with the words ‘In my day-’, I’ll have my Black Sabbath to comfort me. Or Queen, maybe. Whatever might strike my fancy, actually.”

\-----

There was a huge fucking elephant in the room and, for once, Tony wasn’t gleefully pointing it out. Tony was not a man to shoot himself in the foot—whether literally or figuratively. (Well, _okay_ , there was that one time he accidentally shot a very weak repulsor blast at his foot, but he’d had the suit on and hadn’t fried his foot to ashes. But he digressed.)

There was a large purple elephant in the room that only Tony could see, and it was clearly wearing a sign that had, printed in the same creepy blocky, mismatched letters that blackmailers always used, ‘Loki is Exactly Who You Think He Is And You Know It’.

Tony swallowed nervously and it ended up coming out like a squeak. Even more humiliating was the fact that the suit microphone (damn himself for thinking a sensitive microphone was even a good idea) picked up the sound and amplified it through the suit. And it came out like a robot mouse was nosing around on the floor, squeaking for cheese. Goddammit.

He’d hoped that the others in the quinjet hadn’t heard it over the noise of the jets, but Natasha looked back at him briefly and Rogers frowned, saying questioningly “Stark?”

His mind, still reeling from his unexpected and unwelcome realization, rushed through the hundreds, thousands of ways of concealing his revelation and keeping it from Natasha, Rogers, SHIELD...and especially Loki, now that the affair he’d had over a year ago was suddenly relevant to the mission.

Now Tony just had to keep everyone in SHIELD’s noses out of his his business. Thank god that Pepper was back in New York, set to leave for Malibu, and that Rhodey was off in the deserts of the Middle East.

His thoughts wandered once more to Loki, looking for all the world to be deathly bored of everything in the quinjet. Except...he kept glancing frequently at the suit, curiosity in his eyes.

Tony wanted to smack himself for being so hyper aware of the guy.

 _It was only two fucking months_ , Tony told himself internally. _Get a grip, man_.

Now he knew why he’d been so quick to lay on the charm with some guy, even if he’d been pretty hot. Because maybe somehow, he’d known that he—Loki—wasn’t just some random guy.

But that wasn’t the most concerning part of this whole mess. Sure, Tony might just have to use a couple of his usual SHIELD evading techniques, but that wasn’t anything to break a sweat about.

It was clean and simple what he had to do to keep SHIELD from smelling the dirty laundry that was just drying in the wind, over the hypothetical mountain that hid it from SHIELD’s eyes. Just like a mathematical equation. Derive this, and take that, and there would the answer. Simple steps to get to the solution. He’d done it thousands, millions of times before--when creating things in the workshop.

But Loki...Loki was the unexpected variable that he hadn’t accounted for. Tony had been doing perfectly fine for the past year, hiding his little indiscretion, the whirlwind affair that had happened. Making SHIELD think that his only secret was that he’d been dying from palladium poisoning, when all the while, he’d had something else, much more closer to his heart than the poison had ever been.

Loki was like that icing problem he’d had on the Mark II suit—something unaccounted for. And it hit Tony like a sack of bricks to the face. He’d had enough trouble keeping SHIELD off his back as it was. But now that Loki was apparently a highly dangerous criminal that SHIELD was taking in...

Now Tony was equally pissed and curious as to how his fuck-buddy of a year ago was now a criminal. Definitely curious as to what it was that made him dangerous, and how he hadn’t seen it before.

 _Well_ , maybe there had been signs pointing to it before. Like the man’s seeming familiarity with slipping past the security at hotels, the readiness at which he agreed to meeting with their most recognizable characteristics hidden by masks, and that one thing that Loki did with his hips that should be made fucking _illegal_.

That last one probably wouldn’t have made him eligible for the dubious first place of SHIELD’s most wanted criminals. But the most pressing problem was now the interrogation that was sure to happen as fangirls fainting at a One Direction concert. Tony’s problem wasn’t really with the interrogation itself, but with the possible blabbing of certain secrets.

Tony glanced at Loki, who was still seated quietly. The guy didn’t seem like he’d be letting a peep out of his lips, let alone a whole tell-all confession like it was an issue of People Magazine. He just had ‘biding his time’ painted all over him in giant old english font! But Tony didn’t kid himself into thinking that no one had a price, or a weakness. _Somehow_ , _somewhere_ , and at some _time_ , the cat would be let out of the bag.

That was the whole point of the secrecy, the sneaking around the city, the fucking masks—

Tony could only try to make sure the details of their relations weren’t spilled to the wrong people. In this case, SHIELD. The nosy aunts of even the whole intelligence business.

So one way of making that happen was...making sure that Loki didn’t happen to recall those many nights they spent together. And one way of that was to ensure that Loki didn’t suddenly think about Tony, or rather, his anonymous online persona. Or the beardless person that he met in countless hotel rooms.

Tony thanked his earlier methods of hiding his identity—the most valuable to his fame being his trademark beard. So then there were only a few other characteristics that Loki could recognize him by to worry about. At the moment, Tony didn’t really feel a sudden urge to get naked in the quinjet—exposing himself to Rogers, Natasha, and Loki wasn’t really that high on his bucket list, so that was another check on the “ _Make Sure Loki Doesn’t FIgure Out I’m The Guy He Had An Affair With_ ” list that he didn’t have to worry about.

For the moment he just had to worry about whether Loki might hear his voice, that of Tony Stark, wildly successful industrialist playboy and billionaire, and recognize it as the same guy that had tied him up and whispered terribly dirty things in his ear.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Tony figured that he’d just have to adopt a fucking Darth Vader voice to disguise his fairly unique voice.  It was a stupid idea but Tony didn’t have any other ideas as to how to change his voice, especially now that he just heard Natasha confirming to the helicarrier traffic control that they were about a fourth of the way through their trip back to deliver the prisoner.

If he was going to convince Loki that he was a completely different person, then he was going to have to do it now.

-

[[]]]

A lot of thunder suddenly sounded really close to the quinjet. Tony frowned. Where the hell had that come from? JARVIS hadn’t alerted him of any thunderstorms anywhere on their route to SHIELD’s helicarrier. He then noticed how Loki had reacted with dread, and with some awareness of what was happening. Tony eyed him suspiciously. What could have Loki, of all people, looking almost uneasy?

“Thunder and lightning bother you?” Rogers prodded at the prisoner.

“Not so much as the cause of it.” Loki stated, looking upwards.

“Nothing like a little sudden electrical discharge and vibration in the air.” Tony offered, but forgot to talk like Darth Vader in the beginning, so the result was not unlike a guy going through puberty.

Loki stopped his examination of the ceiling of the quinjet to give Tony a withering glance complete with raised eyebrows.

... _shit_. Well maybe his plan wasn’t going as well as he thought it would. Instead of drawing attention away from him, it had done the opposite. Tony obviously hadn’t thought this through very well.

Tony berated himself mentally for his stupidity, but his thoughts were cut short upon some serious turbulence rocking the quinjet.

“The _fuck_ was that?” Tony yelled, grabbing onto a handy strap to keep himself upright. Old Spangly Man unluckily went ass over head. Tony would’ve laughed maliciously if he hadn’t had enough problems _not_ doing a spirited impression of those poor saps in _Titanic_. Natasha, lucky spider that she was, had been very securely strapped in the navigator’s seat, and now shouted their status to the helicarrier.

Against his good reason, he turned to check on Loki in some sort of residual concern left over from a year ago. Loki met his searching eyes, and saw the concern that couldn’t be mistaken for normal watchfulness or anything platonic behind them. Tony knew then that Loki might have just caught him.

He swallowed down the swirling emotion that couldn’t have come at a worse time. Tony steadied himself and put his helmet back on. He was going to check on what had caused that weird turbulence, like a velociraptor had been dropped on top of the small aircraft.

Pressing a button to open the cargo hold, Tony tried his best to ignore Loki’s staring.

“I would not recommend that course of action, but, oh, why delay the inevitable?” Loki muttered.

Tony pointed a finger warningly at Loki, stressed out from the revelation and close to the end of his patience. “I’m going to have to ask you to shut your face. Can’t listen for dementors when you’re going doom and gloom on me.”

The ramp of the quinjet finished lowering and Tony prepared for the worst. “I really hope this isn’t going to turn into Snakes on a Plane. I don’t want to find out the suit isn’t snake-proof—”

Instead, a long-haired blond guy with a beard, red cape, and a hammer dropped in. Tony would've started laughing because the man was wearing some sort of weird costume to even rival Captain Spangly Outfit over there. Except the guy who'd literally dropped in was holding the hammer like he knew how to use it. Loki reeled back in his restraints, looking for all the universe that he desired to be anywhere but there.

“Well, that was anti-climatic—” Tony began but was thrown to the ground with a hammer to the chest. He scrambled up quickly to see the long haired blond guy fly off into the thunderstorm with _Loki_.

“Thanks for the help, Father Time.” he barked at Rogers, who had been unable to help in the incident that lasted all of a minute. The billionaire was left frustrated and confused at what exactly had happened and why. He had to calm himself down before even beginning to think of the next step.

The sound of Romanoff being so forcibly composed and alerting Fury that their prisoner had just been taken, seemed to semi-remind Tony of his ability to rationalize his way through this.

“Elvis has just left the building.” Tony declared sarcastically. He threw up his hands. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t really know what you just said,” Rogers piped up, gathering his shield from the floor of the quinjet. “But we need to come up with a plan.”

“How about this for a plan?” Tony asked rudely. “I’ll attack.” And he flew off the ramp and into the dark clouds and thunderstorm.Criminal or not, Loki was still his, and Tony was going to get him back. 

[[[]]

\-----

After the small platoon of SHIELD soldiers (or whatever) met them in the cargo bay to take custody of Loki, Tony took off like a bat out of hell. Literally. He powered on the repulsors and flew down a service hatch.

He ignored Natasha’s shouts of “STARK! YOU CAN’T DO THAT HERE!” as he flew deeper into the inner bowels of the helicarrier.

Tony was not running from his problems. He was just...going to take some time to think about them. And when he was good and ready, maybe he would confront his problems.

 _Like in a thousand years_ , Tony thought derisively.

There was no way that Tony was going to touch that can of worms that was this relationship...with Loki...who had turned out to be Loki, demi-god of fucking _Mischief_. _Oh god_.

He flew a bit too closely to some storage boxes and, in his current distracted state of mind, unbalanced. Tony found himself flat on his back, looking at the pipes on the ceiling of the cargo hold. He sighed.

“I hate my life.”

A box of supplies promptly fell right on his helmet-encased head, presumably jolted by his suddenly having a quick meeting with the floor. His howl of outrage was heard throughout the helicarrier.

In the lab set up for him, Bruce Banner looked up from trying to track the Tesseract, brow furrowing at the slightly robotic yell that had echoed in through the air vents. He had just taken off his glasses to wipe at them (fifteen hour long flights from India weren’t much of a calming experience, really), when he spotted the prisoner, Loki, who grinned menacingly at him while passing through the hallways, escorted by SHIELD personnel.  However, all the mirth dropped from his face when he heard the howl. Now the demi-god looked a bit concerned, if Bruce could call it that.

In the bridge of the helicarrier, Natasha Romanoff narrowed her eyes as she also heard the howl, eyes searching the service vents above the conference table. Thor turned around, befuddled.

“What was that disturbance?” he asked in his old fashioned way. Natasha didn’t answer at first, because she was still tensed for possible attack. Then she snorted as recognition set in.

“Sounds like Stark.” Natasha said, dismissively.

"Stark?"

"You'll meet him soon enough." she explained, settling down at the conference table. "He's a real piece of work."

\---

After Tony had recovered from the minor temper tantrum that he threw after having a whole fucking crate of _Chef_ -fucking- _Boyardee_ —why SHIELD had ordered shitty canned ravioli was beyond him—he decided to do a little digging of his own.

But first…he had to figure out where SHIELD put the box he’d asked them to pick up for him. Little did they know, it was his portable suit remover. Or whatever. He’d come up with a snazzier sounding name later on.

...Maybe. If he ever got around to it.

Tony took a couple of wrong turns trying to get to another section of the cargo storage until JARVIS took pity on him and found a map on SHIELD’s database. After that, it was just a small matter of activating the homing device he’d added to the box. He found the fairly large metal box in the middle of a bunch of crates. Tony approached it quickly, nearly hopping in his haste.

“God, I’ve a hell of an itch that I really want to scratch. Left side of my back has been killing me. Open the crypt up, JARVIS.”

A crack appeared in the middle of the box, where it had looked pretty smooth and sealed, and widened into two doors. Tony stepped inside and the doors closed in on him.

“Although it does resemble a crypt, sir, I would hope that it is not one, for your sake.” JARVIS said.

Immediately, machinery sprung from the bottom of the box, removing the suit piece by piece, as Tony peered at a holoscreen on the door of the box, scanning the notifications that appeared there.

“Was that a threat, JARVIS? Because it sounded like one.” Tony replied. Then he joked, “Don’t make me regret letting you know about ‘I, Robot’ and ‘Space Odyssey 2001’."

“Of course not, sir.”

Once the robotic arms withdrew with the last piece of the suit, Tony nearly ripped off his band t-shirt in his haste to scratch the itch he couldn’t get to while wearing the suit. He let out an audible sigh of relief.

“So, what clothes do we got in here?” Tony asked, figuring that he might as well change into something other than what a teenager would wear.

The wall behind him popped out, and extended a small closet. Doors split to reveal clothes hanging on a rack.

“What to wear, what to wear—” Tony muttered distractedly, eyes scanning the shirts on their hangers.  “Got to look snazzy to impress the stiffs that Fury’s picked for the mission.

His hand found a deep blue shirt.  “Aha!” He exclaimed triumphantly. “Maybe a little tie and jacket and they’ll won’t know what hit them.”

JARVIS piped up. “Wise choice, sir. Perhaps this will improve your relations with your team.”

Tony’s mood soured. “Team? Who said anything about a team? I’m just going along with them for now. Don’t play well with others, and all that stuff.”

“Of course, sir.” JARVIS agreed, but sounded like he was humoring him.

Tony exited the seemingly innocuous box, removing his phone from his pocket to close the doors of the box. He straightened his tie, and pulled out his phone to look at the map of the helicarrier. Now he was going to go straight to the source for his information—the helicarrier's bridge, where the agents were processing transmissions and other data relevant to the search for the tesseract.

———

When Tony reached the bridge, the only other person of the group—that Fury had supposedly assembled—that was there was Natasha. She noticed the billionaire walk in and smirked at him.

“Feeling better?” she asked in a way that seemed concerned, but was actually just her being sadistic. For a moment, Tony was confused at her question, but realized that she was referring to his not-so-mature flip out earlier with the boxes. Judging from her reaction, the whole helicarrier just might have heard it.

“Loads.” Tony deadpanned. He pointed at the video that she was watching in the surface of the conference table. “What’s this?”

“Live feed from the containment cell.” Natasha replied, looking back down to watch it.

“Ah.” Tony said simply, stiffening at the sight of Loki in the reinforced cell. It seemed like he’d caught the last of the interaction between Loki and Fury. In the live feed, Fury stepped away from the cell, but not before a parting shot at Loki.

“Well, let me know if real power wants a magazine, or something.” Fury mentioned sarcastically. He’d probably didn’t expect Loki to respond the way he did in the next moment.

“Well, you wouldn’t happen to have _Travel + Leisure_ on hand, would you?” Loki spoke up. “But I suppose _National Geographic_ or _Entertainment Weekly_   wouldn’t be so awful to pass the time with.”

Tony snorted. 

Natasha glanced at him. "Snappy guy, isn't he? I'm surprised he even knew the names of those magazines or even what they are. Thor was pretty clueless when I mentioned things from Earth. Loki knows a lot more about the planet than we expected."

"You have no idea." Tony replied, staring at the image of Loki pacing the cell like a caged animal in the live feed.

"Stark. Do you know something we don't? You seemed a little too friendly with a SHIELD prisoner."

Tony sniffed. "I don't know what you're talking about." Then he got up to pace the length of the bridge, ignoring the assassin's gaze following him suspiciously.

"We got footage on what happened at that party in Germany?" Tony demanded at a random SHIELD agent sitting at a workstation in the main area of the helicarrier.

"The Stuttgart incident, sir?"

"Yeah, whatever you call it."

The agent clicked and typed for some moments before the right info was accessed. Tony wondered if he should've just hacked the files himself. But at that moment, his plan to drop a hacking bug and find his way through the SHIELD servers was still underway. He just needed to get the perfect moment to plant it on a workstation. Tony didn't need to get on Fury's bad side quite yet so publicly.

"We have interior and exterior video of what occurred at the museum." The agent finally said, pulling up two different files.

"Show me the interior shots." Tony said, leaning closer to the screen.

He watched as the video feed from an interior camera in the museum filled the screen. The camera seemed to have a rather large area of surveillance, covering the entire main atrium. His eyes caught movement behind the guy giving a speech, at the top of some grand staircase. Tony privately thought it was pretty swanky and perfect for a grand entrance. Which was exactly what happened—as the same man now in SHIELD custody, easily pimp-smacked a security guard with a scepter after swaggering down those steps, and just kept walking on without missing a beat.

He had to give the guy props for the most fucking badass entrance in the history of, well, bad-as-fuck aliens. Or demi-gods.

The feed switched to another, closer camera that had a clearer picture of what happened next. Even though Tony wished it hadn't, because of what happened next.

Speaker of honor guy was seized by Loki and thrown onto an old slab in the middle of the atrium, as if he was nothing but a little rag doll. And, thanks to the unfortunately close security camera, got a front row seat good ol' eye mutilation.

Or at least that was what it looked like from this angle. Tony still cringed a bit, even knowing it'd been some sort of retinal scanner. He'd seen some shit, but the implications were just awakening his completely logical instincts of protecting his precious peepers—er, eyes.

Even the agent next to him seemed to stare at a point slightly higher than the actual screen. Anything was better than eye gore, right?

For a lack of things to stare at, other than the well-heeled elite running away like little children or the spinning device, Tony fixated on Loki. Hmm, the picture wasn't all that clear but he could've sworn he recognized a familiar pattern in the long scarf around Loki's neck...

"Can you zoom in? Or improve the picture?" Tony asked the agent.

"This isn't CSI." the agent sniffed.

"You think so don't know that?" Tony snarked at the junior level agent. "I know the boundaries. I've worked on some of this stuff for SHIELD."

[[[]]]

\----

“No harm done, Hercules.” Tony said, patting Thor’s rather bulky shoulder almost patronizingly. Like he hadn’t just nearly been smacked down by a guy in a cape and long blond hair. Rhodey was never going to let him live it down if he ever caught wind of what happened.

Then the genius stepped forward, examining the screens set up like two separate podiums but still somehow connected.

“How does Fury even work these things?” Tony asked, perplexed. “A lot of work for one eye.”

Maria Hill, charming henchwoman of Fury, just stared. “He turns.” She provided slowly, not quite grasping Tony’s insane thought processes quite yet, or even how he existed.

“Too much work,” Tony muttered, outraged. His thoughts were already reaching toward the diagrams and working to improve the design.

A sudden, horrible thought came to him. “You think Fury’s ever seen a 3D movie? Were those even out before he lost his eye? Because it’d be pretty sad watching it with one eye, and he’d only see weird shifted images in red and blue…” Tony trailed off, noticing that Maria’s eyes were transfixed, frozen at some point over Tony’s shoulder.

“He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Did I call you here to gossip about my eye?” came Fury’s voice uncomfortably close. Tony cringed and turned around.

Fury was standing behind him, in all his one-eyed spy glory.

“Nice to see you, too.” Tony hastily joked, trying to cover up his inane musings said out loud. “How’s it chllin’? Haven’t seen you since New York last month—”

A flicker of movement at the peripheral of Tony’s vision as Rogers looked up in dawning recognition. Natasha also seemed to recognize it, too. Damn spies.

Fury ignored him like he hadn’t spoken at all. “We have a situation on our hands. A real world-wide emergency.” He looked carefully and gravely at the motley bunch gathered there. “Possibly even an intergalactic emergency, if what I’m told is right.”

Tony, who had taken a place standing by the wall, couldn’t help himself and muttered in a stage-whisper, “The red shirts bite it first!”

Their reactions were priceless. Thor looked down at his cape, which was—coincidentally— _red_. Tony didn’t think that Chaucer in the flesh, there, really understood the reference but he was nonetheless alarmed. Natasha, on the other hand, just rolled her eyes. And well, Rogers was reverting to his default mode: confused. The guy he assumed was Bruce Banner scored major points in Tony’s book, as he looked like he was fighting down a grin. And Fury…

Well...Fury just seemed deathly exasperated at Tony sidetracking his whole ‘the world and galaxy is in danger’ spiel. His eye twitched at Tony, who leaned back on the wall like a teenage delinquent.  “This is a helicarrier of SHIELD, not the USS Enterprise, or where ever you think you are, Stark.” Fury had to continue in a louder voice because Tony had taken it upon himself to start singing ‘Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the USS Enterprise’.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we now have a psychotic alien in our possession, while we don’t have the SHIELD artifact we were after. To make matters worse, it’s in the hands of our enemies and we’ve only got this nutcase—” Fury pointed at the security footage of Loki just sitting in his clear cell. “As the only clue to where its been taken!”

An ominous silence settled in the helicarrier main area of operations. Even Tony had stopped singing the Picard song inanely.

“You mean SHIELD’s enemies.” Tony spoke up.

Fury narrowed his eye at him. “SHIELD’s enemies. Your enemies. What difference will it make? Whether you like it or not, you are consulting for SHIELD—and part of this organization.” Fury said. “That goes for all of you. You’re all part of the Avengers Initiative.”

“What exactly are we avenging?” Tony asked imprudently, stifling a yawn. Damn, he overdid his late night doing research and reading those files Coulson gave him. “Did Loki manage to steal someone’s dog, or something?”

Natasha shot him an incredulous look, clearly thinking ‘why is this clown here?’. She actually said out loud, “Did you even read the file? Or pay attention when we were getting debriefed?”

“Uh, number one—I read the science and tech stuff last night. Pulled one hell of a one-nighter. I’m kinda an expert on this stuff now. Maybe the tesseract, too.

“And number two—was the debriefing when we got to this flying ship in the sky? _Howl’s Moving Castle_ on crack? Because I was having JARVIS set up the DVR for my TV shows. You know, for when we get back.” And then he added, just for effect,  “And I don’t read files, _the files read me_.” Tony proclaimed.

“You’re not getting back until we deal with this threat to Earth.” Fury almost growled. “Else you won’t have a TV show to get back to. Or anything the way it is now.”

Tony sulked inwardly. Which kinda meant outwardly for him, too.

“Fine,” he sniffed.

“As I said earlier, the tesseract is with SHIELD’s enemies and our number one priority should be getting it back before they manage to do anything with it. And I want to know how in hell did Loki manage to use the cube to turn two of my men into his personal _flying_ _monkeys_.” Fury said disgruntled.

“I understood that reference.” Steve pointed out proudly.

Tony had to stop himself from rolling his eyes all the way back into his skull. “Only twenties kids get this.” he mocked.

Rogers frowned at him. Tony raised his eyebrows challengingly. Natasha smirked. Thor just looked concerned. And Banner discreetly checked the exits out of the bridge.

Fury muttered exasperatedly, “Never have I ever seen a group of grown-ass adults act like toddlers that don’t want to play with each other.” He paced the length of the bridge. “What do I have to do to make you bunch work together? Make you listen to _‘Lean On Me’_?”

Tony offered up his opinion. “Sounds like a great soundtrack for the mission.” He leaned forward, serious. “But that depends if its the original version or the Club Nouveau version.”

Fury ignored him again. “At this point, even trust falls might be necessary for this team.”

“Uh, no. That’d be terrible.” Tony interjected.

The director turned toward him. “Have I said something stupid? If I have, then by all means, speak up.”

Tony straightened up. “Well...you see its like this. I could bet you three of my cars that every single person in this room wouldn’t hesitate at the chance to drop me off a cliff.”

“Though technically, one of them already did, I did crash him into a cliff, so we’re kinda even.” he added. “And maybe he,” Tony said, pointing at Bruce, who looked fairly unassuming but appearances were deceiving. “Maybe he wouldn’t do it, but only because he doesn’t know me enough yet.”

“Now that we’ve established how much you know we don’t like you, Stark,” Natasha interrupted. “Maybe you could let Director Fury finish debriefing us further?”

“Thank you, Agent Romanoff,” Fury stated pointedly. “What I was saying before I was interrupted—this group needs to learn to work as a team. Otherwise, those that are out there threatening our world will succeed.”

\----

“Now what’s this I hear about you fraternizing with the prisoner?” Fury said, turning to him after the others had left.

“Totally not true.” Tony said with a straight face.

“Agent Romanoff would say otherwise.” Fury countered, with a look that dared Tony to argue with him.

“She’s a lying liar who lies.” Tony stated, appearing for all the world that he believed everything he said. Even the ridiculous and rather infantile comeback he'd just used.

Fury squinted his good eye incredulously. Tony just continued on conversationally. “Your agent sits on a throne of lies. Which is...expected, really. Because she’s a _spy_.” Then Tony stopped and thought for a second. “Wait...how do you even trust her? I’ve heard some things about Black Widow. Mostly in Russian,” Tony shrugged. “But I got JARVIS to translate it.”

The director of SHIELD seemed to suppressing a good, long lecture for Tony, but held back because he probably knew that Tony wasn’t going to listen to it. “I’m not obligated to tell you, a consultant at this point, or anyone else my reasons for trusting my agents,” Fury remarked. “But I do need to know that I can count on you for this mission. Are we going to have any more problems with you?”

“Nope.” Tony replied, lying through his teeth. He hoped to god that there wasn’t going to be any more crazy shit going down, but knowing his luck...well, shit might happen.

“Then that settles it.” Fury nodded. He hinted heavily, “I think Dr. Banner might need your assistance in his lab.”

Tony knew a dismissal when he saw one. “Aye, aye, cap’n.”

Fury shook his head. “Still not the USS Enterprise, Stark.”

“Who said anything about that? I’m talking about the Black Pearl!” Tony backed out of the room before Fury could change his mind about not strangling him earlier.

Now, how to get to the lab in the helicarrier…

\----

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Tony said, waving his arms around.

Fury, who had been standing over by the screens of the lab, turned around so sharply that Tony momentarily panicked and thought that he was in the exorcist movie. " _Excuse me?"_

"Um." Tony uttered intelligently.

"Did I just hear what I thought you just said?" Fury demanded, single eye twitching. Tony thought that he could see his eyepatch move just barely.

\-----

**  
**

"Oh," Loki said, surprised. "I was just going along with them until I found a better offer."

"We have a Hulk."

Loki crossed the room in several quick strides.He got veeeerry close to Tony. "Throw in yourself," he said, eyes glittering.  "and we have a deal, Mr. Stark. Or shall I say, _DontStopMeNow_?"

Loki smirked at him while Tony gaped at him like a particularly thirsty wide-mouthed bass. Or like that creepy possessed, singing bass everyone hated.

"Fuck. " Tony cursed. "I was hoping you forgot that."

"Tony," Loki replied, almost tenderly. "How could I ever forget you?"

Tony, never one to pass up an opportunity for ego-stroking—or any kind of stroking, really—jumped for that line. "I know right?" He said, preening. "I'm damn noticeable."

Loki grinned at that. Then pretended to think. "However... To be honest, I might not have paid quite much attention if you hadn't been using that Odin-awful voice."

"...Dammit."

\----

[[[]]]

Epilogue:

“You've still got your hearing or something, with Fury, right?”

“Yes,” Loki said quietly.

“They’ll pardon you,” Tony said. “Or Fury will have to hear from me. He can’t afford to be so morally so black and white. Hell, Natasha’s the agent with one of the most shades of gray in her morals, its practically the shitty book.”

Loki cracked a smile.

“They honestly can’t find you guilty for everything you did. The Chitauri and the Other fucked with you mentally,” Tony continued hotly. “I mean, some things you did were terrible, but we can’t really afford to eliminate every single thing that doesn’t fit in with the ideal.”

“Are you okay with that?” Loki spoke up.

“Are you?”

“I don’t believe that I will ever forget what I did.”

\-----

“Do you mean to stay with me even after all I did to you and your world?”

“Loki,” Tony laughed, his name rolling easily off his tongue. “I think I’ve wanted to stay with you since that first night.”

“And anyways, I think I already got enough payback.” he added.

Loki reached up to touch the rapidly healing wound on the side of his forehead, from when Tony knocked him out. Or as Natasha would call it, cognitive recalibration. “Ah, yes.” he muttered recalling the incident.

Loki smiled then, one of the first true smiles he’d given since those nights they had together, all those months ago.

“Perhaps things can work out after all,” Loki remarked.

“I know they will,” Tony said, then leaned in to kiss him. After some moments, they broke apart, breathing hard, and not noticing they knocked over a bag in their fervor.

“I missed you so.”

Tony smirked. “Good to know, since you just stopped messaging me out of nowhere.”

“I had no choice, my visits were nearly discovered by the gate-keeper, Heimdall.”

“Really? I’d like to hear more about your world. From you, not your brother. Seems nice enough, besides the whole throwing down the hammer at me, but, you know no hard feelings really. He’s probably not really helpful in explaining things from Asgard. I overheard him talking to Coulson.”

Loki snorted. “That is typical of him. Well, as you know, Asgard is one of the nine realms…”

They sat for who knew how long on that couch in the penthouse, Loki telling him stories and the history of his realm, with Tony occasionally interjecting with snide comments or actual questions. Loki had gotten up to stretch when he found the bag spilled out on the floor. “Is this yours? I believe we knocked it over earlier…”

Tony looked inside at the contents of the bag. It was the same duffle bag he’d brought to Stark Tower when he had first arrived in New York. He found something familiar spilled out over on the floor. Tony started laughing.

“I guess DUM-E wasn’t such a fuck up, after all.” he commented, chuckling, taking out the burgundy velvet mask.

As Loki recognized the mask from their fling, he looked into Tony’s eyes, smirking. Magic shimmered around Loki, as he magicked up his own old mask. “Just like old times…” He grinned devilishly. “Shall we?”

Tony grinned back, putting on his mask, motioning to the bedroom. “After you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Formatting and other things done in a hurry, will be fixed soon. I copied and pasted the fic from an existing document, so I hope I did not miss anything when transferring it over.
> 
>  
> 
> Fanart: theavengingcannibal.tumblr.com/post/101139282033/  
> My wonderful artist broke her arm half-way through the fanart done for this piece, so the other art will be posted when she recovers :)


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